by Mary Monroe
I had to rub my eyes to make sure they were not playing tricks on me. I reached behind me and locked the door and then I stood there with my hands on my hips.
Jade was on her back splayed like a frog, naked to the world, with the head of her companion bobbing up and down between her thighs.
“Jade, what in the world are you doing, girl? You get your nasty little self up off my bed!” I shouted. Pee Wee and Charlotte were downstairs in the living room, slumped in front of the TV watching reruns of The Jeffersons.
When I had come into the house, Pee Wee had mumbled something about Jade being upstairs. There was nothing unusual about that. The older Jade got, the more time she spent at our house. She even had her own key and as far as she was concerned, she could occupy our guestroom any time she felt like it and that’s just what she did. And the reason she came and went as she did was because we’d always let her. Well, that was more my doing than Pee Wee’s. He wouldn’t even allow his relatives to get that comfortable when they came to visit.
“What are you doing in my house?” I stood by the side of the bed with my arms folded. I was horrified at what I’d walked in on. But I was even more disturbed by the fact that Jade and the girl she was with glanced at me and kept right on doing what they were doing! I snatched an Essence magazine off the nightstand and swatted the other girl’s naked butt.
“Auntie…can’t you see I’m busy?” Jade panted, pausing long enough to moan.
The girl was unbelievably bold! I had expected her to jump up, grab her clothes, and run, apologizing profusely to me.
The look of ecstasy on Jade’s face frightened and embarrassed me. Nobody had ever seen that look on my face. Not even when I had worked as a prostitute and did everything I could to make my tricks think I was having a good time. I usually made love to my husband in the dark. But even when we did do it where he could see my face, he never saw me make faces like the ones Jade was making now. In addition to being horrified and frightened, I was jealous!
“This is the last straw! I told you my house was not a motel! You can do whatever you want to do with your girlfriends or boyfriends, but not in my house!” I hissed, yelling loud enough to make Jade think I meant business. I leaned over the bed and lowered my voice. From what I could tell, these two hussies had no desire to leave that bed until they were good and ready. I swatted the other girl’s butt again. This time harder. When that didn’t get a reaction, I grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face me.
“What?” the girl squeaked. The entire bottom of her face was covered in Jade’s joy juice. “Lady, what is your problem?”
I could not believe that a stranger could talk to me like this in my own house—
“How dare you two nasty little things come into my house and behave this way?” I snarled.
Jade stopped moaning, squirming, and panting long enough to speak. “Auntie, what are you doing? I never knew you could be so…so rude! I know you like to get your pussy eaten just as much as the rest of us,” Jade said in a serious tone of voice.
“Look, girl, you, your little friend, and your nasty language need to get up out of my house. I told you I wasn’t going to be a part of this.”
“Auntie, what is your problem? If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you were not getting enough loving yourself these days. You need to talk to your man about that.” Jade let out a deep sigh and rubbed her girlfriend’s shoulder. “This won’t happen again,” Jade said.
“You are damn right it won’t,” I yelled. “I want both of you to get up and get your little nasty-ass selves dressed and go home. Lickity split!” I immediately wished that I had not used that particular phrase. Jade giggled, her friend gave me a thumbs-up sign.
“Lickity split, lickity split,” Jade said in a singsong manner, slowly sliding her tongue across the top of her bottom lip. The longer they stayed, the more horrified I became.
“I’m sorry, Auntie,” Jade finally said with her head bowed. Looking up she added, “I really am. Can you leave us alone so we can get dressed?”
I left the room stomping, but as soon as I reached the landing at the bottom of the steps, I tried to act as normal as possible. Pee Wee and Charlotte glanced up from the television as soon as I entered the living room.
“Is Jade all right? She said she had real bad cramps and couldn’t find her key to her own house and wasn’t nobody there to let her in,” Pee Wee said, his back to me now. I was glad he couldn’t see the disgusted look on my face.
“Uh, she’s fine now. I gave her some Advil,” I lied.
“I hope she don’t make a mess up there in that room,” Pee Wee snapped.
“She won’t,” I said, plopping down on the sofa next to Charlotte. I immediately started tapping my fingers on the top of the coffee table. When Pee Wee noticed, I stopped and gave him a nervous grin.
Every few minutes I looked toward the stairs, hoping to see Jade and her lover. But when another ten minutes passed and they still had not come downstairs, I went back to the guestroom and flung open the door again.
This time I was even more horrified. Jade and her girlfriend were still naked and still stretched out on the bed. But this time it was Jade’s head bobbing up and down between the other girl’s thighs.
CHAPTER 36
I stood in the doorway of my guest bedroom for just a few moments, trying to adjust to the spectacle on the bed. Again! I blinked and rubbed my eyes.
But other things were going through my mind at the same time. Things that had been even more painful than what I was looking at now. This room had a history that I had tried to put behind me. It was too disturbing. Mr. Boatwright had slept in this same room and he had raped me more times in it than in any other part of our house.
For several years after his death I had used this room to store some of the items that most people stored in their basement or garage. I kept the door shut at all times and the curtains drawn until the room got so gloomy and musty I didn’t want to go into it unless I had to.
But after I had finally told my mother—and everybody else who had worshipped Mr. Boatwright like a saint—what he had done to me, my attitude about the room changed. I refused to let it control me any longer. Hell, the room was part of my own house and I was in control. I had already had the room painted several times, each time hoping to cover another painful memory. With the new queen-size bed and the bright new furniture, which had taken me so much time to choose, it looked like a new place. And it really was. It was the perfect guest bedroom. We allowed everybody who used it to treat it as they would a room in their own home and that’s exactly what Jade did whenever she felt like it.
Jade glanced around at me and kept right on doing what she was doing! I stared at her in slack-jawed amazement. I had to rub my eyes because it was hard to believe that I was seeing what I was seeing for the second time. The floor on the side of the bed was littered with cute, pastel-colored bikini panties, padded bras, and a pile of other clothing. Jade’s ever-present yellow backpack was on the small blue wing chair facing the bed. The bed was shaking so furiously, both nightstands on either side were rattling. I was not surprised to see two beer bottles rocking back and forth on one of the nightstands, clicking against the side of the little white lamp that I’d purchased just a few weeks ago.
Jade’s lover, a honey-colored girl with reddish brown hair, and a small, upturned nose, winked at me as she wrapped her long, slender legs around Jade’s shoulders. Instead of wasting any more of my time protesting, I just shook my head and shut the door. Pee Wee and Charlotte were surprised but pleased when I rejoined them in the living room and insisted on taking them out to dinner. I rushed them out the door so fast they had to put their jackets on in the car.
Two hours later when we returned, Jade and her friend were gone. I was still furious. I planned to let Jade know that I didn’t appreciate the stunt that she had pulled in my house, with my husband and my young daughter right downstairs! Jade was too self-centered and brazen for her own
good, and something told me that it would be her downfall. I just hoped that it didn’t involve me.
The bed had been made up and they had had the good sense to spray the room with pine-scented room deodorizer. But even that didn’t hide the fact that they had also smoked weed in the room. Well, I wouldn’t say anything to Jade about her and her friend smoking marijuana in my house. That little indiscretion was a little too close to home. That was one skeleton in my own closet that I wanted to keep there.
I didn’t condone the use of drugs, but when I was young I never turned down a chance to share a joint with Pee Wee, a habit he had picked up in Vietnam. Unfortunately, Jade had walked in on us indulging on more than one occasion. I was proud of the fact that I had not puffed on a joint in over five years. And everybody knew that I had given up that particular habit. I couldn’t speak for Pee Wee. I didn’t want to think about how many joints he smoked when he hung out with Otis.
According to Rhoda, who despised smoke of any kind, Otis had relatives in Jamaica who lived the Rastafarian lifestyle and they smoked marijuana on a regular basis, from the grandfather on down to the kids still in grammar school. Pee Wee never turned down one of Otis’s frequent invitations to accompany him to Jamaica for a few days. And now that I thought about it, Jade always went with them.
I didn’t particularly like being a middle-aged woman, even though the people my mother’s age still called me “young lady.” But I was glad that age had rewarded me with a little more common sense. There were some things that I’d done when I was younger that I would never do again. However, there were things I did now that I wished I could stop. Being such a pushover where Jade was concerned was one of them.
Jade didn’t come to my house for two weeks after the incident with her and the girl in my guest bedroom. As a matter of fact, I saw very little of her during those two weeks. I missed her frequent visits, but I wasn’t about to do anything to bring her back any time soon. Pee Wee seemed relieved not to have Jade underfoot so much.
“That girl spends too much of her time up under you. She got a home and she need to stay in it more,” he insisted.
I could tell that he was trying not to sound too harsh because he knew how much I doted on Jade.
“She’s not really happy at home,” I defended. “You know how boring Rhoda and Otis are these days. He spends most of his time at his job or propped up in his La-Z-Boy with a beer in his hand. Rhoda spends most of her time at the mall and the beauty parlor. Jade is at that age where she needs more attention. Her grandparents on both sides live too far away, and her brother doesn’t want to be bothered with her coming down to Alabama to pester him to death.”
“That ain’t our problem. It ain’t our responsibility to make Jade happy. And if she ain’t gettin’ enough attention from Rhoda, how come every time I look up, that fast-ass Jade is taggin’ along to that mall and that beauty parlor with Rhoda? Maybe the girl’s problem is she is gettin’ too much attention.”
I gave Pee Wee a thoughtful look. “Well, I don’t really mind paying ‘too much attention’ to Jade. She keeps me young,” I said with a hesitant smile.
“Well, she don’t do nothin’ for me but get on my nerves. She is still a child, she ought to stay in a child’s place. And to tell you the truth, I don’t want her comin’ around this house when you ain’t here. Especially when I got my cousin Steve and the rest of my boys over here watchin’ a game. She can’t stay out from underfoot, prancin’ around us with them short shorts of hers cuttin’ into her behind like a ribbon. It ain’t healthy.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Annette, you ain’t stupid. You know how men are. A woman throw somethin’ at a man long enough, he’s goin’ to catch it sooner or later…You know what I mean.”
CHAPTER 37
Pee Wee and I didn’t argue often. And when we did, I had to tune up my mouth and organize my thoughts to make sure I didn’t say something that I’d regret.
I gave him a guarded look, but I didn’t appreciate the hot look that he gave me. Still, I didn’t want to say anything that I would regret.
“Pee Wee, if I ever hear about you saying or doing something inappropriate where Jade is concerned, I will never ever forgive you. I will hate you for the rest of my life. Even more than I ever hated that sex-sick puppy, Mr. Boatwright, for taking advantage of me. You—You know better.” The words that had just slid out of my mouth felt and tasted as foul as a snake must have tasted and I was immediately sorry.
Pee Wee dropped his head, scratched the side of it, and then quickly looked back up at me with a strange expression on his face. I couldn’t tell if he was angry, sad, or just plain disgusted. And he had every right to be all three. Without another word, he left the room with me following so close behind him, I stepped on his heels.
“Woman, what in the world has got into you?” he demanded, whirling around to face me. His eyes had darkened to match his mood.
“Uh, you know damn well that I didn’t mean anything by that,” I said with a forced grin, touching his arm.
He wasted no time in removing my hand from his arm. I felt like I had been burned, and I wanted to blow on my hand. But under the circumstances, I didn’t want to appear too melodramatic. There was enough going on in the room already and I had started it. Now it was up to me to finish it.
“This ain’t nothin’ to be laughin’ about. I got a young daughter and if any motherfucker touches her before she’s of age and without her consent, they will have to tie me up and tie me down, stuff me in a barrel, and then throw me in the ocean. Because if I ever get loose, I will kill that motherfucker. You can count on that. I would expect any other man to do the same thing to my black ass, if I was stupid enough to touch his underage daughter. Otis is my best friend, and you know how far me and Rhoda go back. I wouldn’t mess with their baby girl. You of all people know me better than that. At least I thought you did. But I could be wrong.” Pee Wee paused and gave me one of the most critical looks anybody had even given to me. It was so disturbing and intense that I had to hold my breath.
“I know you would never in your life touch somebody’s child. Especially Jade,” I said in a thin voice.
Pee Wee slapped his hands on his hips, more anger flashing in his eyes. “Annette, I don’t ask you for much. All I ask is that you be a good wife and a good mother. So far we have been real lucky in our marriage. I want to keep it that way.” Pee Wee lifted his hand and shook a finger in my face. “But don’t you never say nothin’ that stupid to me again as long as you live. You know I would never ever put my hands on my best friend’s young daughter. Even if Jade was twenty-five years old, I wouldn’t touch her with a yardstick. Skinny women don’t appeal to me no how. You know that,” Pee Wee said, his eyes giving me a quick look up and down.
Pee Wee started to walk away again but he stopped and gave me another angry look. “And another thing, I hope you didn’t forget what I shared with you that night you came out about what old Mr. Boatwright had done to you all them years. I had my own story. Somebody took advantage of me, too, when I was a child.”
I bowed my head submissively and left the room. I wanted to hide my face because it was burning with shame.
As hard as it was to believe, I wanted Jade to start coming back to the house. I missed her and so did Charlotte. Now that I had had time to cool off, I decided that I wouldn’t bring up the incident involving Jade and her girlfriend in my guestroom. What good would it do anyway? I asked myself. If nothing else, she was the distraction I felt I needed to keep me from getting bored. Had she been present during my last argument with Pee Wee, I never would have said such a ridiculous thing to the man who had all but saved me from a life of despair.
I continued to visit Rhoda at her house, and we visited the nail shop and the beauty parlor together like we always did. I didn’t want anything to seem out of the ordinary to her where Jade and I were concerned. She was Rhoda’s most sensitive area. Jade was not just Rhoda’s daughter. In some w
ays it seemed like Jade was Rhoda all over again, so I had to be careful how I dealt with them both. I knew firsthand what Rhoda was capable of doing. And if she didn’t stop at murder, there was no telling what to expect from Jade.
“I’m glad Jade has finally started spending more time with kids her own age,” Rhoda told me over one of our frequent lunches in the same food court where Jade had revealed her lesbian leanings to me. But instead of pizza, like I had enjoyed on my lunch with Jade, I ordered just a salad, like Rhoda. “I can’t believe how mature she’s gotten these last couple of months,” Rhoda said with a shy smile, nibbling on a small piece of lettuce. “She seems so pleased with herself these days. She cleans up her room and other parts of the house without having to be asked. She even volunteers to run errands. Ha! I remember when I used to ask her to go over to Pee Wee’s barbershop and let him trim the ends of her hair, and she’d rather get a whuppin’. Now she rushes over for Pee Wee to trim her hair before she even needs it!” Rhoda smiled so warmly, her eyes watered.
“She is growing up,” I offered, snapping a carrot in two with my teeth. I was impatient, but I didn’t want Rhoda to know that. I knew that after we parted, I’d have to make a beeline to the McDonald’s next door to snatch up a few Big Macs. The only thing that salads did for me was make me mad. But Rhoda had insisted that that was all we should order. She was on a tight schedule. We had ordered something that we could eat fast, so that she could be on time for her appointment at a nearby spa for her weekly massage.