So You Call Yourself A Man. Carl Weber

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and my favorite coffee cup in the other. She was naked except for the top sheet of my bed, which she had wrapped around her large torso, and a grin that told me she’d had the time of her life.

      “Good mornin’.”

      “Mornin’,” I replied as she stepped up to the side of the bed.

      “I made your favorite breakfast. I even made you homemade biscuits just the way you like them.” She lifted the plate.

      “I can see that.” I smiled, looking over the plate like a hungry wolf before taking it out of her hand. “What’s the occasion?”

      “I just wanted you to know how much I love you. How much I enjoyed myself last night. You know, I never had a man make love to me the way you did last night. It was as if you knew my body better than I did. Just thinking about it gets me warm and tingly all over.” She shuddered, then rubbed her arms, trying to rid herself of the goose bumps that appeared.

      I lowered my head, trying to conceal an ego-driven grin. I was happy Alison was pleased with my performance, but I wasn’t surprised. Ever since I first started having sex as a teenager, women had been pleased with my abilities in bed. Funny thing is, all I was doing to them was what I wanted to have done to me.

      “If I’d known it was going to be like that, I would have insisted we did it a long time ago.” She gave me that same wicked smile from the night before as she placed the coffee cup on the night table. I watched as she loosened the sheet, letting it fall to the ground. I stared at her soft, naked body, then shook my head as she reached for me.

      “Alison, we can’t do this again until we’re married. Now, I think you should get dressed. We both have some praying to do before we go to service.”

      4

      James

      I pulled my UPS truck in front of Michelle’s mother’s house. I was nervous as hell about seeing her, so it took a good five minutes before I got out of the truck and knocked on the door. I’d asked to have my route changed after we stopped messing with each other, so it had been quite some time since I’d been here. Despite the obvious reason, I was also concerned that seeing her might bring back some old feelings like in that Fantasia song, “Truth Is.” We’d had some good times in that house, but I was hoping to keep those memories suppressed. Back in the day, Michelle could make me stand at attention just by looking at me, and the last thing I needed was to find myself sexually attracted to her after all these years.

      Thankfully, my concerns disappeared when she answered the door in her beat-up old sweats and hair rollers, like she had in the old days before we started fooling around. Seeing her in her less made-up state made me question why I’d ever messed around with her in the first place. She wasn’t ugly by any means, but for lack of a better word, the aura she used to have was gone. She couldn’t hold a candle to what I had at home. It’s amazing what a little loneliness will do to make a man think an average-looking woman is the woman of his dreams. Of course, at the time I wasn’t getting any at home, and well…let’s be honest: Michelle was willing to do anything and everything to make me happy at the time.

      “What? You gonna just stare at me or are you coming in?” she asked as if I was holding her up from doing something important. Funny thing is, if I remember correctly, she was the one who wanted to speak to me. I didn’t reply, though. I just opened the screen door and walked into the living room.

      “Damn, James, you gettin’ fat,” she spat as I walked past her.

      I turned to see her staring at me with a less-than-desirous look on her face. I immediately sucked in my gut with a frown. Her smart-ass comment had not just hurt my ego, but my feelings as well. Yeah, I’d gained a few pounds since I’d seen her last—probably closer to ten or fifteen—but it wasn’t as if I was totally out of shape. In retaliation, I eyed her from head to toe, lashing out in a calm yet condescending demeanor. “Thanks, Michelle. You’re lookin’ good too. I see you did your hair just for me…. Oh, and is that a new outfit? ’Cause that gray in your sweatshirt matches your black rollers perfectly.”

      She touched her rollers self-consciously, obviously embarrassed by my remark, but that didn’t last long. “Was that supposed to be funny, James?”

      I smirked, but again I didn’t reply. Michelle rolled her eyes, then plopped down on the sofa with an attitude. “Well, tell me if you think this is funny.” She lifted a piece of paper from the coffee table and handed it to me. I looked at it and shrugged. All it had was some math problems scribbled on it.

      “What’s this?”

      “That is seventeen percent of the average UPS driver’s monthly salary, multiplied by thirty-six months. That’s what my social worker says I’ll get in back child support if I take your ass to court.”

      “Thirty thousand dollars? Are you insane?” I shouted. I looked down at the paper again as I eased myself into the love seat.

      “Children are expensive,” she replied nonchalantly. “Now, if you don’t like it, he’s in the bedroom taking a nap. You can take him home to your wife and you ain’t got to give me shit.”

      My stomach began to tighten up and beads of sweat started to roll down my forehead. I glared across the room at Michelle, whose smug grin was forming into a full-fledged smile. She was enjoying herself. She was enjoying herself a great deal, and my next thought was that I should get up out of my seat and knock that smile right off her face. Fortunately for her, I didn’t hit women, but I was starting to understand why some guys did.

      “Michelle, I don’t have thirty thousand dollars, and if I did…”

      She cut me off with a wave of her hand and an exaggerated snap of her fingers. “Relax, James. I don’t want you to give me thirty thousand dollars.” I let out a thankful sigh that was halted by her next comment. “But I do want eight hundred a month, plus child care.”

      She didn’t know it, or then again maybe she did, but the reality of the situation was that she might as well have been asking for the thirty thousand, ’cause there was no way I was giving her eight hundred a month. Shit, my ceiling was two hundred and fifty, and I was going to suggest two hundred until I could get a blood test. Once again, I could hear that little voice in the back of my head asking me why the hell I ever fucked with her in the first place, especially without a condom. I still didn’t have an answer, and once again I contemplated getting out of my seat and smacking the shit outta her.

      “I can’t give you eight hundred a month. I’m living paycheck-to-paycheck as it is.” I sat up defiantly. “Besides, I don’t even know if I’m the father of your son.”

      There, I’d said it, but now I wished I hadn’t, as Michelle’s honey complexion turned a crimson red. She looked like she was about two seconds from blowing a fuse.

      “First of all, his name is Marcus! And he’s not my son, he’s our son.”

      “So you say,” I replied, reaching over to the end table next to me and picking up a framed picture of a child I assumed was Marcus. He had the same chocolate-brown complexion as me, but other than that, I couldn’t see any resemblance.

      “Momma’s baby, Poppa’s maybe…is that what you trying to say?” She was rolling her head as she spoke, but I had gone there now, so I wasn’t about to back down.

      “Yeah, that about covers it.” I placed the picture back СКАЧАТЬ