Red Light Wives. Mary Monroe

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      Larry had me right where he wanted me: in the dark. I couldn’t see the light even though it was right in my face. It was a sad position to be in at my age. But like I said, I was a fool in love.

      One of the reasons for my condition was Larry made me feel special. He’d missed a day’s work without pay to paint my apartment, he worked on my car for free, and he often accompanied me to movies I knew he would hate.

      “Girl, we are the only Black folks sittin’ up in this theater,” he’d complained with a chuckle and a loud yawn, the night I dragged him to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

      “We can sneak into that race car movie next door,” I said, pouting.

      “Uh-uh, baby. This is the movie you wanted to see. All I care about is pleasin’ you. Just wake me up when it’s over.”

      That’s the kind of talk he used to keep me in my place. And it worked.

      It took a lot of energy to make a relationship work, and I was one hardworking woman. I figured that if I put a lot into it, I’d get a lot out of it. I didn’t even mind lending money to Larry because he always paid me back when he said he would. Even though he often borrowed the same amount of money the next day! I had girlfriends who did even more for their men, so I didn’t think that I was doing anything out of the ordinary.

      Not long after I’d made the well-rehearsed call to my supervisor’s voice mail, complete with a weak voice and a hacking cough, Larry had come by my apartment on his way to work for a “wake-up call.” Our sex life was so good we’d named it. I looked forward to our wake-up calls, which, by the way, sounded a lot better to me than the crude and overused term “booty call” that so many of the people I knew used. And I didn’t wait for Larry to approach me; I requested wake-up calls as often as he did.

      Since Larry had stopped trying to talk me into getting an abortion, and was now helping me choose a name for our baby, I thought he was as happy as I was about me being pregnant. He didn’t care how bloated and lopsided my face was, or how swollen my ankles were as I splashed around naked in the shower with him that morning.

      “Lula Mae, uh, I don’t know if I can make it back this evenin’ for dinner. My…uh…cousins from D.C. are still at the house, see,” Larry told me, tapping my navel and then rubbing the base of my belly with the palm of his hand. “They wanna go out to dinner again before they leave.”

      Since Larry made so many sacrifices for me, I didn’t like to badger him too much. But when he disappointed me, I felt I had a right to let him know.

      “Don’t you want me to go with y’all?” I whined. “I would like to meet some of your relatives.”

      Larry tickled my chin and kissed my forehead. Then he spoke to me in the same slow, controlled way I’d heard him speak to foreigners who didn’t fully understand our language. “Now, baby, you better stay home and get some rest. Me and my cousins are drivin’ all the way to Biloxi, and you know how carsick you get these days. After you have the baby, I’ll take you up to D.C., honest to God.” I felt like a docile immigrant when he added, “Do I make myself clear?”

      I gave Larry a weak nod, but with my bottom lip poked out. A slight grin decorated my face as I slid my hand between Larry’s hard, soapy thighs. I started giving him a hand job, something we often had to settle for lately. My backaches, cramps, spotting, and other discomforts associated with the advanced stages of pregnancy had temporarily stopped us from fucking like dogs.

      “If you don’t want me to go, why don’t you bring your cousins over here? I got enough food to feed an army. And, like I said, I would like to meet some of your family,” I suggested, praying that Larry would at least offer to come back to my place after taking his cousins to dinner.

      As much as Larry liked my cooking, I often ended up alone, eating elaborate meals that I had prepared to share with him. Those were the most miserable nights of my life. But I wouldn’t get mad at him; I’d just get drunk. Then I’d eat everything I’d cooked and sit by the telephone waiting like a lovesick tiger in a tree for him to call.

      I never knew what was going on in Larry’s head, but marriage was on my mind after our first night together. It was a subject he avoided like the racist cops who got their kicks by harassing Black men for no reason at all. Whenever I brought up marriage, Larry wasted no time changing the subject, but not before giving me a list of excuses. Even though we had been together more than a year, he had decided that we didn’t know each other well enough, he couldn’t afford a wife, and he was not ready for a lifetime commitment.

      I turned off the shower and repeated my last question with a slight variation.

      “Can’t you bring your cousins over here for dinner to eat some of my mustard greens, gumbo, corn bread, and pork chops?” I held my breath and waited.

      For a moment I thought I had him hooked, the way his eyes froze. Then he came out of his trance, shaking his head so hard his wet hair whipped the side of my face. The water from the shower and his sweat made his face look like it had been glazed. I wanted to lick him dry, but I didn’t because the red flag he waved this time was so big I could have used it for a towel.

      “That’s all right!” Larry said, talking so fast he almost choked on his words. He stumbled away from me, forcing my hand to slide away from his crotch. “Uh, I don’t want you to go to all that trouble.” He started groping for a towel, his eyes on everything in my bathroom but me. His erection had disappeared within a matter of seconds.

      “Well, if you change your mind, y’all can all come over anyway. And I’ll go ahead and cook this evenin’, after I get back from the mall. Just in case y’all do make it over here,” I decided. I was so disappointed, my head began to ache. But that didn’t stop me from arousing Larry again. I finished him with my tongue. He held my head in place with both hands, moaning like he was the one with the headache.

      He was still moaning when I dried him off. “Lula Mae, I swear to God, you so good to me, girl,” he said, smacking his lips and patting my crotch. I followed him to my bedroom and watched him slide back into his work clothes. “You sure know how to make a man feel like a man. Mmph!”

      “And I can be even better to you, if you’d let me,” I purred, grinning so hard my cheeks ached. “My daddy is scared to death he won’t live long enough to see me get married,” I confessed.

      Larry sat down on the side of my bed, grunting as he wiggled his feet into his shoes. I squatted in front of him and tied his shoelaces. Except for the large beach towel draped around my shoulders that I had used to blot Larry dry, I was still naked. A cool breeze coming in from an open window in my bedroom made me shiver.

      Larry’s warm body suddenly felt cold and rigid, but not from the breeze. His eyes stopped moving. It seemed like a very long time for a person not to even blink. Then he let out a deep breath and finally shifted his eyes, blinking so hard it almost made me dizzy. “Girl, how many times do I have to tell you, I ain’t ready for no family?” I had never seen him so upset.

      “Well, the only difference between us and a married couple is we don’t live together,” I whined. “I don’t want to end up like my mama.” Larry stood from the side of my bed so fast, I almost fell. Stumbling up, I followed him to the mirror behind my bedroom door, watching him rake his fingers through his damp, curly brown hair. “And if we lived together, we’d save money on rent,” I added.

      I couldn’t ignore the look of contempt on Larry’s face as he glared at me in СКАЧАТЬ