Lisa Allen-Agostini - Trinidad Noir

The man-who-resembled-her-father-who-was-her-father’s fingertips rested on the beautiful Tatiana woman’s hip bone. Meera Meera Johna imagined her father perched on this woman whom he (or perhaps not he) was hugging, and with the thought came that dizziness, delightful one second, nauseating the next, and there were, too, those butterfly-wing kinds of tickles as seconds before.

She looked away to her mother who was outside on the patio. Her mother’s gaze shot repeatedly to those of the guests with whom she chatted, all the way across the almost empty living room (straight past the philodendron plant) to the room in which her father, and most of the men, and That Tatiana Woman had gathered. Her mother glanced back and forth, her mouth paralyzed in the shape of a smile.

Meera Meera Johna concentrated again on her father. His fingers tapped, just barely tapped that hip bone in time, and rubbed the hip bone out of time, and then tapped it in time again to the music. He extracted himself and went to speak to the deejay. Isabella Tatiana’s eyes followed him. The deejay spun in his swivel chair to reach a pile of albums. He showed them to her father and her father nodded. The music changed from a slinky-sounding Cha cha cha piece to the most popular calypso of the day. In an instant, all the guests began to move their bodies to the beat. In sudden haste, the men and women from both sides came together into the center of the room. The room had filled up fast and with so many people it darkened.

Lady Oswald walked over to Meera Meera Johna’s father. They walked together, several steps away from all the guests. Sir Oswald watched them from a distance, and his face grew darker than the room. Lady Oswald seemed to be scolding Meera Meera Johna’s father. Her father pulled Lady Oswald to him, gave her a small kiss on her cheek, danced away to the light switch on the wall, and, although the room was already dark, dimmed the chandelier so much more that Meera Meera Johna could have stood up and waved her hands and not have been spotted. Lady Oswald stayed still, her back to the rest of the party. She fixed her hair, but she stayed for a good while where she was. The men were beginning, one by one, to loosen their ties and undo the top buttons of their shirts.

Meera Meera Johna watched her father. He was bringing, onto what had been turned into a dance floor, Isabella Tatiana That Tatiana Woman with the black dress the dress that had no straps the dress that had no straps that somehow how on earth it stayed up, and her long wavy hair so wavy. He kept his tie fastened, and did not dance like the other men in what was called a “break-away,” but in his hand he held one of the woman’s, and the other hovered on her waist. He seemed to push and pull her with that hand. They grinned at one another. Lady Oswald walked through the dancing crowd to her husband and he gripped her hand and seemed to pull her hard, to march her straight toward the stairs that exited the house.

Meera Meera Johna’s mother suddenly appeared, walking hurriedly through the mass of dancing people, bumping hard against her father as he danced with this woman. “Oh, I’m sorry, excuse me,” she said, her eyes aflame and watery, her mouth still pinned in a smile, but a ragged one now. John Lucknow Mansing let go of That Tatiana Woman as if he had been stung by her hip and her hand, and in an action as smooth as a dance move he wrestled with the reluctant wrist of his wife as he pulled her to dance with them. She continued to try to wrangle her wrist from John’s grip while biting the lower lip of her still smile-shaped mouth. The water in her eyes tried in vain to extinguish their fire. She pointed beseechingly to something on the patio. Meera Meera Johna looked in that direction, but there were no guests there as they were now all on the dance floor, leaving the yardman to pick up their empties. Meera Meera Johna was sure she caught his jumbie-bead eyes watching her parents, and there was that sickening feeling in her tummy again. John Lucknow Mansing did not even look in the direction of the patio in which his wife was pointing, but shook his head and seemed to insist that she stay and dance. The floor was so crowded that Meera Meera Johna couldn’t now see what was happening without imposing herself, but in a second her mother had yanked her hand from her husband’s and left the room. Meera Meera Johna hoped her mother would not return and interrupt everything again.

Her father reached his arm around the Tatiana woman’s waist, pulled her to him, this time closer, tighter, firmer. One of his men friends shimmied up to Meera Meera Johna’s father and the woman; he thrust his arms in the air and his pelvis was aimed at the woman’s. Meera Meera Johna’s father had a glazed grin sealed on his face. He stepped back to indicate permission, then spun around on one heel to arrive again next to the woman. The man had by this time finished his gyration, and spoke to Meera Meera Johna’s father. Meera Meera Johna’s father lifted his face to the chandelier, closed his eyes, and had a full laugh. He looked the man in his eyes and shook his head, as if to say, “You know!” The man backed away in time to the music. Meera Meera Johna’s father and the woman put their arms around each other, and they danced side by side. The woman put her lips to Meera Meera Johna’s father’s ear and they moved about there. Meera Meera Johna’s father did not look at her but nodded. He let go of her, slipped away from her, and spun around again.

Her mother did not return, but the following morning, by pressing her ears to the closed doors of her parents’ bedroom, she heard her mother say, “... not divorce you, not over my dead body... not after all that I have... for you... and Meera Meera Johna...” (Meera Meera Johna was both pleased and frightened, and felt oddly guilty, to have been mentioned.) “And I want to know what your relationship... Lady Oswald... No wonder Sir Oswald... Sir Oswald should have... you... I will... you suffer... will have to live with me for the rest of your life.” Meera Meera Johna ate breakfast alone, and then she went out into the yard with her butterfly net in the hope of catching, not her father, but her mother, one big blue butterfly.

Mee Mee Jo, as Brooklynites Vishala, Ursela, Tanya, Susana, Rhonda, etc., called her, was in a most delightful and, so, unfortunate position when she received the first call from her mother telling her that her father had, as she had long worried might happen, succumbed to the effects of breathing in an excess of chloroform.

On pulling Vishala’s lavender-colored spandex strapless top up over Vishala’s head in a hot and flustered state, it occurred to her that she could use the stretchy thing to tie Vishala’s hands together, so she did just that as Vishala made a brilliant show of mock protest, flinging her head from side to side, and wincing, begging for forgiveness. Mee Mee Jo then reached under the lined polyester skirt to find that Vishala had worn no underwear. This so excited Mee Mee Jo she put her mouth to Vishala’s and kissed her softly in gratitude. Then she held the top of Vishala’s skirt and pulled it down and down, side by side, and the hand-tied Vishala struggled slightly even as she lifted herself to make the removal easy, and Mee Mee Jo, having got the thing down, used it to tie the feet of her gorgeous prey who kept on whispering pleasepleaseplease and uhuh uhuh uhuh . Mee Mee Jo lay her naked body on top of her Vishala, grabbed a handful of her long and wavy hair, and held it just tight enough to give the impression of brute force, even as one of the fingers of that same hand stroked Vishala’s face in tenderness, and when Mee Mee Jo placed her hand, hard and stiff, on Vishala’s neck, Vishala gave a cry of pleading and desire all at once, and Mee Mee Jo’s entire body was seized by a raging desire of her own. She achingly, slowly lowered her pelvis toward Vishala’s, Vishala’s thrust upward impatiently wanting, and was about to flick herself at her prey when the phone rang. She would not have answered had it not been for the special ring assigned to her mother.