Natashia Deon - Grace

I stand on the wrong side of this door with my belly quivering, waiting for Mr. Shepard to greet me. He’s counting his money, slipping bills through his pinchers. He folds a wad of dollars and slides it through a silver clasp and into his pocket.

I shift in the doorway, hope he see me move.

He don’t.

He lops a deck of cards in his bag, his dice, then fastens it closed. I clear my throat. “Uh-hum,” I say softly. Louder, “Uh-hum?”

“Didn’t know y’all served breakfast,” he say, and stacks his chips in piles on his table, then sits down. “You here for my order?”

“N — naw, suh, Mr. Shepard.”

I try to think about Jeremy, the secret wedding we gon’ have when he win, what I’m gon’ wear when we promise. But just as I think it, the thoughts get ripped away, blurred and in pieces. I say, “S — somethin else I can do for you, suh?”

He sits back in his chair, puts his feet up. “It’s a damn shame, really. Most men take at least a day, a week before they send their girlfriends, their wives, their sisters. But you. . almost immediately. He did send you, didn’t he?”

I don’t say nothing.

“Twenty years and I’ve seen hundreds of gals like you. Chasing a chance for some man they think loves ’em. A sad occasion. I’ll do you the favor of some advice. Leave him while you still got a soul.”

I don’t want to look at him.

I wipe my sweaty hands down the sides of my dress, whisper, “Can I do something for you, suh?”

“Speak up!”

I try to remember me and Jeremy, why I’m here. . the way we love each other. How this can help us leave here and start a new life.

He say, “What makes you think I’d ever touch your kind?”

“I. . I could take good care of you, Mr. Shepard. I’m experienced.” I lean my back against the door, raise one hand above my head, put one foot flat against the door, pucker my lips.

He watches me. Finally, he gets up and comes to me. “Charlie,” he say. “Call me Charlie.”

“Yes’sa, Charlie, suh.”

“Tell me what you’d do exactly,” he say.

I lower my voice so it’s sexy and raspy like Cynthia’s when she charming. I say, “I’ll make you happy.”

“Then talk dirty to me,” he say.

“Dirty, suh?”

“You do know how to talk dirty? With that voice you just made and all.”

I fidget a little, lower my arm and foot, wipe my hands on my dress again, put ’em back on the door in place.

“Tell me what makes you special?” he say.

“I’ve only been with one man, suh. I. . I ain’t had no children so I’m still tight.”

He puts his hand gently behind my head. I shiver as he kisses my cheek softly. Only Jeremy’s kissed me there. That way.

He slaps it. Grabs my face around my cheeks, squeezing too hard. “Tell me you’d fuck me,” he say.

I hesitate.

“Say it!”

“I. . I’d fuck you, suh.”

“Say, ‘I want to fuck you.’”

“I–I want to. .”

“Say, ‘I like it rough.’ You do that?”

“Y — yes, suh.”

“Don’t say, ‘suh.’”

“Yes, Mr. Shepard.”

“Charlie!” he say.

“Yes, Charlie.”

“I got a big dick, too. You like that? Split you open?”

“Yes, suh. . Charlie.”

“You can make me hot? Make me come.”

“I. .”

He turns me around, pushes my face into the door. “Tell me you’d suck my cock.”

“I’ll tell you anything.”

“Tell me!”

“I’ll suck it.”

“Spill my seed where I want to? Your mouth?”

I nod, my cheekbone grinding on the door.

“Your boyfriend want a chance that bad? Give up his tightness for me?” He clutches my ass, presses his face on the side of mine. I flatten to the door as he breathes in my ear, telling me things I don’t want to hear. Telling me about me. About Jeremy. Nasty things I won’t tell nobody.

He unlocks it, pushes me out the door, tells me to go.

I stand outside his door alone.

The morning light is stale now. Withered away. And I’m nasty.

My skin feels spitted all over, hocked and loogied, brushed on and stanking.

Jeremy’s waiting for me.

I cain’t go to him like this. Cain’t let him feel me sticky and smell me this way. I smell of the breath of dead things. This hallway, an empty tunnel of bones.

“Naomi?” Jeremy say.

Don’t come near me.

“Naomi?”

He holds me now. When my face hits his chest, the bitter taste of whiskey livens in my mouth. Jeremy kisses my neck but won’t touch my sinful lips.

“I love you,” he says, holding me tighter. “I love you so much.”

He lets me cry there in his chest, rubs my back. “I love you, too,” I say.

“I don’t even care about the money,” he says. “Whatever he gave you will never be enough. I don’t even want it.”

I don’t want to talk.

He squeezes me. “How much was it?” he say.

I hug him back. Hard as I can.

He say, “It don’t matter. I’m just so sorry, Mimi. I promise to God that I’ll win back double. Triple. And we’ll leave tonight. Get married like we meant to.”

“Nothing,” I say.

“What was that, doll?”

There’s doll again.

I say, “He didn’t give me nothing.”

He throws his arms off me. “Bastard didn’t pay you!” He turns away from me, headed to the parlor door.

I stop him. “He didn’t want me. I tried but he didn’t want me.”

“How hard did you try?”

I cain’t answer.

“I’m sorry,” he say. “I love you so much, Mimi. We’ll find another way.”

WE’RE ALL BORN empty.

Got a empty place inside us that needs to be filled and refilled by something real. And if you believe as I believe, it’s the seat of God. Love. God is love. But for these needy bodies, almost anything will do.

We start that way. Needy. Babies crying for food and drink and warmth. And as we get older, we fill our empty with anything promising wholeness, or peace from it — friends, alcohol, sex, money. But the only thing that quenches for a long spell — forever if we want — is love.

The love we choose.

And renewed love is as beautiful as new, I think. Like finding sweet things in old linted pockets, brushed off and licked new. Syrupy sweet, they are. The way they were first made to be.

I imagine when Mr. and Mrs. Graham were young they were filled with love. And the first time he saw her, he got a big lump in his throat while she ignored him completely.

I imagine his humor, his kindness, and the kiss he snuck on the day of a church picnic, made her give herself to him. That they exchanged letters that made her blush and she showed ’em to her friends.

I imagine he’d always find ways to skip fishing to see her, to hold hands with her, to waste time daydreaming ’cause nothing else mattered.

I imagine they laid on the grass near some stream when it was in full spring bloom and they shared wild dreams and the names they’d give their children.

I imagine they loved each other deeply, with every bit of themselves, they did.

But now, another woman lies in Annie’s bed.

ANNIE WAS JUST finishing her wartime party, a fundraiser for something-rather, when I came this afternoon and found Kathy upstairs in Annie’s bed. Richard, who had slipped away from the party, was waiting across the room from her, and Doctor had his head on Kathy’s fully covered chest. “Cough,” he said.

When she did, he raised his ear off her chest and put two fingers at the side of her neck, said, “Missus Graham is gracious to allow you to utilize her bed. Her room.”

“Yes,” Kathy told Doctor. “My cousins have always been very kind.”