One Safe Place

by Alvin L. A. Horn

  I strive to be the most beautiful woman I can be for my shining Black Knight

  I want to protect him with my mind, offering knowledge for his choosing to use me as he pleases…knowing he won’t abuse me

  I’m content feeling he is the one safe place

  His soulful ways, I ride throughout the day

  And love every part of him through any and all darkness

  There is something about his love

  His love lifts me to the heavens, and he makes hells for those who would oppose our love

  He is a slow dance, skin-to-skin, mind-to-mind, soul-to-soul

  He is a slow kiss deep kiss

  He is a slow but raging powerful beat in my heart

  He fits me high and tight, and universally deep

  He is not science

  He is logic to my soul

  He is the prescription my soul survives on

  He makes me weak to submit

  He feeds me strength to be secure

  He is the scent of arousal

  He is my urban groove

  The man is jazzy in many time signatures at the same time he is perpetual arrangements

  He is a country love ballad of finding the perfect love

  He is velvet to my rough edges

  The man is the grace of a beautiful day

  He knocks me off my feet when he whispers in my ear that I am his queen

  There is something about his love

  The touch of his hand makes me rise to the highest heights others will never reach

  I rise with him to see the sunrise and to love him as the sun slides past the end of the ocean

  His calm makes me float like a bottle in the ocean carrying a fraternal letter of sweet emotion

  The thought of him makes my blood hotter than the desert heat

  He is a desert flower of beauty that only I can touch

  The view of his sensual physique is a treasure that I’d dig the abyss of his soul to keep

  Throughout my day or days away from him

  I live off the moments I want to spend with him

  Like nourishment to my soul, I feel full just from knowing this man

  His golden eyes are the light that shines his way into my heart

  There is something about his love.

  I realize I’m blessed to be his woman, but I’ve read too often if a woman gives that much trust to a man, a broken heart is going to happen. I do have my deal breakers. If I must, I will walk away and live with what has been good, and fight away the hurt of whatever made me leave. I am certain Psalms would never make love or have sex with another woman…I’m undeniably certain of that.

  I’ll fight for women’s rights around the world, to help women receive equal treatment, and equal pay. I’ll stand up for girls to receive equal education. Being one of the few women to break through the glass ceiling at the age that have, I know the struggles and hurts.

  All of that is essential for us as women. Yet, I want us to be able to find men whom we don’t feel the need to tell how to be a man. I want us to find men to trust enough to let them fail, while trying to do their best for us and them. While I fight for women, I want women to fight for black men. I have heard and know the world mocks them, and beats them down. I want a man whom I can believe in, and I can have faith in. I’m devoting my heart to the man that I curl my body in to, and fall asleep feeling like I’m in that one safe place.

  CHAPTER 22

  Another Woman

  Psalms Black

  Faelynn stands at my kitchen sink like no other woman could, and looks good washing dishes. I have a dishwasher. I have a house cleaner. I normally clean my own kitchen after I cook. But, since Faelynn is here, she’s cleaning the kitchen after breakfast, as she always does. Her Southern roots have stayed intact. Those old-school ways are to be admired in today’s less than happy times of relationships. It seems men and women do for each other out of obligation, instead of love or the pride and the joy of making someone happy.

  Faelynn saunters my way and pours me another cup of coffee. She smiles at me, and walks back in the kitchen to continue giving my kitchen her Midas touch.

  Maybe I’ve just been lucky that the women in my life, past and present, enjoy bringing me the consistency of an old-school woman. I know I enjoy bringing joy to them. I hear often that men and women have failed to maintain a respect for what they know is right. Whether a man or woman has been disappointed by the lack of being treated well with old-school loving and doing for each other without keeping score, each person in any type of relationship must still maintain a classic sense of style, of knowing how we should act and do for each other.

  I watched my grandfather and his male friends, and how they treated women. I don’t see a lot of that nowadays. Those men used to wash and wax a woman’s car, polish her boots, hang her pictures up on the wall, come up behind her and kiss her on the neck and then go back to cutting her grass . . .all with the pride of taking care of a woman. I know some of those things sound outdated, but a man should do some of the simplest things for a woman without being asked, no matter if she’s doing her part or not.

  • • •

  This morning, I cooked Faelynn a four-cheese omelet with smoked salmon, scallops, fresh oysters, and king crab, along with red potatoes and sourdough and onion toast. I got up early before she did, and drove to Pike Place Market just as the first fish was being tossed off the boats. I love doing that for her no matter what she does for me.

  I hear from men longing for yesteryear, yet I do understand many women are in the work force nowadays. That can change the dynamics of women doing or not doing…hell, she’s tired. If she’s tired, well, a woman might not cook and clean with pride and only out of pure necessity. Men joke about remembering when a woman would show up with a bag of groceries and clean your crib from top to bottom, and tell you to stay out of her way while she rearranged your sock drawer. She was snooping…in every nook and cranny, but if you had nothing to hide, she was hooking your crib up with pride.

  Whatever people are doing nowadays, it seems like they have lost their way for too many reasons and need to come back to the middle.

  Growing up, I spent a lot of time at Tylowe’s house. I witnessed the days of Tylowe’s mom and dad and how they loved each other. She would never let her husband leave the house with a wrinkled shirt or pair of pants. I have to laugh…His work clothes were so stiff with starch, I’m not sure how the man walked in them. I remember her voice, “Wait a minute, take that off and give it to me for a minute, and let me iron that.”

  I watched Tylowe’s dad come home from work and go out and weed and tend to Tylowe’s mother’s garden, even though he could have Tylowe and me do it. He wanted to be the one who did for his woman.

  Everything in the fridge and cabinets today is prepared instant or microwave ready. It’s rare that men can open the hood of a car, and offer to change the oil in a woman’s car. As much as Gabrielle has a life of people serving her, she can still do for herself, and when the chance comes, she will do for herself without huff or puff. When she’s here, she cooks most of the time. When she’s here, she stops the house cleaner from coming and she takes over. I watch her sing and move her hips as if she is happy to hook me up with her womanly touch. Yeah, the same woman who has sat across from world leaders changes the sheets on my bed, and I can’t stop her from doing what she wants to do when she’s here.

  Much like the pretty woman in my kitchen now; how can I not appreciate Faelynn despite any flaws she may have? She is mopping my kitchen floor as a part of washing the dishes…damn. I hear men and woman are shocked when someone does something for them just one time. Life is so strange nowadays.

  I believe we have gotten caught up on analytical profiles in searching for mates and lost the passion to please each other. Now it’s about, “Look, if you want me, you need to have this to come at me.” Doesn’t sound too passionate to me!

  What about our future relationships? Babies makin
g babies. The youngsters—I don’t believe they can be saved when the old men are gone, like the ones who taught me. Nowadays, girls wanna be like reality-show women. An attitude of ignorance, of easy access to the material world of others, with a dream some man will give them the world—it has stolen hearts and minds. Shame is, though, the material world’s popularity contest changes faster than the seasons and sometimes faster than a download on a smartphone.

  The morning sun is reflecting off Faelynn’s red silk kimono. Bobby Womack’s “Woman’s Gotta Have It” is flowing through my sound system, and she’s swaying to the song. I turn it up. I can’t help but smile at her getting her groove on early in the morning. I’m glad she is here. She is a secret to most, but Faelynn is important to me.

  Her wild hair is so thick I doubt a metal, garden rake could pass through it, but in a way it looks in place. She’s tall and in her kimono, she appears to be a womanly bonfire.

  When she walks out of the bedroom, and into my living room, she becomes art walking across my black wood floors. Pretty she is—simply pretty to the point that all those who see her think and say she is stunning and flawless.

  Gabrielle is beautiful and alluring, while still looking professional. Faelynn is pretty and head-snapping cute. Professional men act inappropriate because of her visual temptation.

  Faelynn recently turned thirty-six years old and is a weekend mother who has her daughter and son every other weekend. Faelynn was married to their father, a world tennis star, whose tennis circuit schedule helped him dip into his choice of tennis whores. She dealt with his extracurricular games until he retired and became a tennis coach, and coached his dick into a young tennis star. He tripped over his arrogance and got caught by the media in compromising photos; he claimed that he and Faelynn had been separated for years. It was the farthest from the truth to her. Faelynn was the last to know. She should have recognized it when the man never came home for days and weeks, or when he always took the kids and left her at home alone.

  Now she’s a part of the new family structure in America. Courts declare men have equal rights to be the custodial parent, especially if they have money and celebrity. Faelynn has freedom and half of his money now.

  She loves to travel, but woefully she went searching for love in all the wrong places after that, and I had to step in and help a wretched asshole languish in a little human hell.

  Another man filmed her having sex and threatened to put it out for all to see if she didn’t come up with a million dollars. Disappointingly, her sister, Gabrielle, asked me to handle the situation. Faelynn has become like my little sister. She’s not my lover and not close to anything like that. She comes here to chill out and enjoy the Northwest every other week. It’s the one safe place where she can let the troubles of the world mentally float out into the ocean outside my windows.

  There is a considerable age difference between Gabrielle and Faelynn. Their faces are twins, but Gabrielle is chocolate and Faelynn is caramel. Both are tall, with Gabrielle being thicker and curvier and Faelynn looking like a beach volleyball player. Born twelve years apart, they are as close as sisters would be as if they had been born only days apart.

  It is so funny when Faelynn is here, and if I let her hang out with me, I guess it’s clear to most she is not my woman, and might be a sister, or cousin, and possibly my daughter. People—well, mostly men—want to know all about her. Some men see her, and their hearts stop and they cannot breathe when Faelynn walks by. Her attractiveness seizes men’s minds, and causes them to have eye strokes.

  I told Faelynn she cannot hang out with me today. I have too many things going on that don’t add up, and too many things not connecting. I have to lone wolf it today. As Faelynn walks away, the Prince song “Lady Cab Driver” floats in my head…again. Even if Gabrielle was not in my life, Faelynn still could not be my woman. Meaning, she’s a woman to love, but not for sex, and for sure, as for me, she is not wifely material as I am not husband material for her. She is that innocent, naïve woman who we need to protect from the world.

  CHAPTER 23

  Save Me . . .

  Evita

  Psalms, I hope you’re looking for me. I know I disappear at times and you’re used to me doing that, but I’m in trouble. I’m sorry I’ve made bad choices, but I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. They are starting to hurt me.

  I was looking forward to the shower that was coming my way. When I got in the shower, the Pretty Boy hit me with a belt, and it stung…it stung…it hurt. Pretty Boy has told me I have to do whatever people tell me to do or I’ll feel more than pain than I can stand.

  Psalms, I hope you’re looking for me. Save me…

  CHAPTER 24

  Touché

  Suzy Q and Tylowe took an extra day to get back to Seattle. Psalms’ text put them in prevent and defense mode. The thought that maybe the great-aunt of the kids could be untruthful changed the driving route from Vegas to Seattle.

  At a truck stop, Tylowe took the kids and the great-aunt inside to eat. Meanwhile, Suzy had them leave their phones to charge in the vehicle. Once the kids and great-aunt were inside, Suzy Q went through their phones with an electronic device, a password code breaker that Mintfurd supplied. She downloaded and sent the info to Mintfurd for analysis.

  They changed course several times along the way up to Seattle while waiting for feedback. The kids enjoyed the ride as they had never been on a road trip. They stopped at the Pacific Ocean, and touched and smelled the water. It was an experience that made them smile amidst the confusion in their young lives. Tylowe heard the kids talk as if they were at the end of the world, and there were no more places to go.

  The kids had been in private schools with only a few other students for most of their lives. Both the boy and the girl had a gentle spirit and didn’t seem to be troubled, but they were naïve about the world around them. It troubled Tylowe’s mind that these kids may be the children of his nemesis Elliot, yet their soft hearts helped ease any ill will. Tylowe attributed the children’s kindness and pureness of heart to their mother. Knowing what he knew of Elliot, the ugly side of him was nothing he would wish on his worst enemy. He hoped that Elliott’s DNA would not weigh the children down. Whether the mother was a respectable woman or not was quite a mystery. The woman had been married to a Russian mob boss and had an affair with Elliot.

  Tylowe looked over at the Pacific Ocean. His mind was sinking deep in the middle of murky waters of confusion. The vagueness of information of potential lies and truth lead to more difficulty than one could imagine. Tylowe smelled the salty air, and it reminded him he had to think unobstructed by emotions. He had to protect.

  He was putting his family, and all he knew to be true, in danger. A day ago, he had held a gun, and Suzy Q used her gun, and…she disposed of a man who wanted to cause harm to the kids and maybe worse. Tylowe looked back at the great-aunt.

  A bit of joy rode along on the trip back to Seattle with the kids and all their questions they had about anything and everything.

  The kids wanted to listen to Michael Jackson, and they did for too many hours. Tylowe introduced them to Jackie Wilson, and told them some soul music history of where Michael Jackson got his dancing and singing style. It amazed Tylowe that they listened and enjoyed the older recording. Soon both the kids were singing “Lonely Teardrops” and “Baby Let’s Workout.”

  Tylowe had raised two girls from their pre-teen age. His stepdaughter wanted nothing to do with her biological father. Clearly she was Tylowe’s daughter in spiritual DNA. Both his girls were now in their mid-twenties. The ride with the two kids made him realize how much he missed being around his daughters in their younger years.

  Psalms had set up an apartment in one of his condos, and Suzy Q and Tylowe pulled into the basement parking garage near late afternoon. The kids were road weary when they met Psalms. Some people see the rock of a man, and look at him with awe. His physical presence impressed both kids. After the kids met and spoke with him, t
hey went to separate rooms. The great-aunt settled into her room for a long bath and went to bed early. Of course, all the phones and computers had information traps as a precaution. Tomorrow, the kids would have a schedule of activities and a tutor would show up, until something more permanent could be set up. Zelda, the female security trainee, stayed in the condo with them.

  Psalms, Suzy Q, and Tylowe convened at Psalms’ condo.

  “Glad you guys made it back safely. I think the mother is dead. Can’t get good intel out of Vegas, but what we do know is strange,” Psalms said.

  “I may be able to get some info.” Tylowe picked his cell phone off the table. He had already texted his wife to let her know he was back. He wanted Meeah to know he wanted to see her. It was beyond simply missing her for a couple of days. His encounter with an old lover and old classmates made him grateful that he’d avoided the drama-filled lives that others lived. The old lover gave him a new perspective on what kind of woman he had at home.

  Tylowe felt righteous about himself. He passed up temptation, the chance to have sex with an old freak he had done nasty things with at one time. Erika offered him an all-expenses-paid booty-fling if he came to town on the regular. He didn’t even think twice about getting in to that strange stuff. That was a red light he stopped at long before it turned yellow. Leading the charge in his soul was that he loved his wife, despite the uncertainty in their relationship.

  If their time was up, and their marriage was over, he knew mourning the loss of Meeah in his life and the touch of another woman would simply be torture and remind him of what he’d had. The last time he had lost someone, he went years hardly being able to engage a woman in conversation. No, if they were over . . .

  He smiled. “A connect is a connect,” and then he repeated, “I may be able to get some info.” He scrolled through his past calls and dialed his friend Jon Jon in Vegas.