Natashia Deon - Grace

“It’s your first fish,” he say and raises it to my face. I cringe.

“Don’t be scared,” he say. “You grew up on a farm.”

“Not a fish farm!”

“Come on, Mimi.”

I like when he calls me that.

“I can’t take your first fish.”

“But it’s alive,” I say.

“Not for long, it ain’t. Put some salt and pepper on this bad boy and. .”

“You cain’t eat it! You said it’s my first fish. So I say put it back in the water with its brothers and sisters.”

He hugs me with his free arm, laughing. “It’s got family now?” The fish’s neck fans in and out.

“Throw it back in!”

“What you gon’ give me if I do?”

“My appreciation,” I say.

He sets it down in the water. It only floats. Paralyzed.

“See,” he say. “It don’t even want to go.” It jerks and disappears under the blanket of dark water.

Jeremy twirls me around and into himself, and rests his body behind me. He say, “Now that we’re gonna go hungry, we’ll have to find something else to do.”

His closeness makes me nervous. “Cynthia will be back soon,” I say, quick.

“Tomorrow. First thing. I know. She told me.” He lays his head on my shoulder and kisses the side of my neck.

“Did she tell you where she was going?” I say, quicker.

He brushes his lips on my ear and whispers, “How about we stop talking about Cynthia.”

“What you want to talk about then?”

“Whatever’s on your mind. I want you to take me there.”

His words make me shy. I try to make him forget about my mind, about being so close to me. I say, “We only got bread and butter now. What else we gon’ eat wit it?”

“ With ,” he say. “Not ‘wit,’ with .” He turns me around to him, presses his belly on mine.

“With,” I say, my tongue stuck under my front teeth now.

I feel frozen ’cause we touching this way and ain’t nobody around to stop us.

“Can I hold your hand?” he say, and takes it without my yes.

He grabs my hand through the fingers like James used to do Hazel and walks me along the stream to where the sunlight is on our blanket. Our lunch sacks are there, too, filled with bread and no fish. He collapses on the blanket and leans back on his elbows, watching me.

I know what his watching means. How men, in their minds, take themselves on a magic carpet ride without us, imagining. That’s what Cynthia say. But I don’t know what it means. Not exactly. I’ve never laid with a man the way women like Cynthia do. Like Momma had to do. Or like Hazel would have done with James because she loved him.

I love Jeremy. But I don’t understand how laying together feels good.

Don’t understand how the screaming means good. Good enough to pay for. Good enough to lose your mind for. Good enough to spend the rest of your life submitting to because you have to or because of this good. It is a wonder of God’s hands that He would put our greatest pleasure in our tools of creation.

I would like to know that magic.

And why Cynthia values it so. And how a man, in so doing, can change the substance of a woman forever. From virgin to something else entirely. Or, is that a manmade rule? That he can lie down with as many women and wives as he wants and still get up with his value.

I want to keep my value.

I don’t want many men, I only want one. But manmade rule say I cain’t marry him, neither.

I want to keep Cynthia as we are.

This is my body.

I want to decide my own value. I don’t want a price tag no more. A slave or a woman. Valued twice. First as a woman and again as not white. I’m priceless. No matter what’s been done to my body, by me or somebody else. I want to make my own rules. . if I wanted. If I was sure.

Jeremy pats the space next to him so I can sit with him but I’m slow to go. “It don’t matter to me that you a negro,” he say. “All I see when I look at you is woman. Beauty is beauty.” When I finally sit, I hold my knees to my chest, keep him far enough away. He slides one finger along my arm.

“People will hate to see us together,” he say. “Me loving you. Our happy children.”

“Children?”

He turns my chin toward his. “Could you risk it?”

I suck in my breath. Hold it. Cain’t turn away ’cause he’s holding me there with his eyes — the tiny red threads inside the whites are tying me up.

I see for the first time the tiny brown freckles that trace his eyelids above his light lashes. A single lash is out of line, bent and longer than the rest. He say, “Can I kiss you?”

I cain’t breathe.

Before I can say no, his mouth is coming close to my face. I cross my eyes, watch his lips form a pucker — see ’em soft and funny looking, more crinkly than I expected. I cain’t help but laugh.

“What?” he say. “Why you laughing?”

“You funny.”

“You don’t want my kisses?”

I put my hand over my mouth, catching my giggles.

“All right, but these some good kisses,” he say, opening our lunch sacks.

He lays out the bread and a flask of something on the blanket. “I brought wine,” he say, moving hisself over to make more room for me.

I try not to embarrass myself and eat too fast but I do. He twists off the metal cup on top of our flask, pours the wine in and offers it to me. “No, thank you,” I say.

He drinks it hisself, pours another. “Come on, Mimi. Just one sip.”

“I don’t want none.”

“You know I wouldn’t give you nothing to hurt you. It’ll help you relax.”

I shake my head. I never had a drink before.

“Come on, for me?” His eager makes me want to try. I pick up the cup, sniff the wine, cringe at the smell of off grapes.

“That’s it,” he say. “Taste it with your nose. Breathe in the aroma.”

“Aro. . what?”

“Just taste it, Mimi.”

I bring the cup to my lips, sip it, and spit it out, bitter.

He laughs at my coughing. “You all right? Was it that bad?” he say, taking the cup from my hand. He sips it. “No, that’s good.”

I keep coughing.

He sets the cup down next to him, says, “I thought you’d like it. It’s supposed to be the best around. Spent yesterday’s winnings on this bottle.”

I think I broke his heart.

I reach over his lap and pick up the mostly full cup and chug it all down in one go.

“Whoa, Mimi.” He takes the cup. “You ain’t supposed to gulp it like that. Savor it. Take a sip. Put it down. When the flavor’s gone from your mouth, take another sip.”

I blush.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed. Everybody mess up their first time. Here. .” He fills my cup again. “Now try.”

I take in a deep sniff of it. “Like that?” I say.

I close my eyes ’cause I think I can smell it better that way. Its scents breeze in me — pear, vanilla, a little cherry, maybe. I sip it and it runs in smooth, swishes between my cheeks, caresses my tongue, licks the roof of my mouth, and slides down my throat. The flavor seems to last forever. Better this time.

He say, “It was good, wasn’t it?”

I open my eyes.

“I always want to make you happy. Whatever you like in this world, I’ll give it to you.”

I feel my neck and shoulders warm from the drink and my eyes bulge. A drip of wine rolls down my lip. He kisses it off. I don’t stop him.

He say, “Was that funny?”

“No,” I whisper, floating limp like that fish did.

He lays me down and scoots himself close to me, rests his hand on my side and presses his lips on mine again, holds ’em there this time. He opens his mouth, a little. His tongue touches mine.

“Did that feel nice?” he say.