God Ain't Blind (3 page)

“Let me tell you one thing, sweetheart. Now that I’ve got you GOD AIN’ T BLIND

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where I want you, you will be hearing everything you ever thought you might want to hear from a man,” he vowed.

He took me by the hand and pulled me into the semi-darkened room, with its dull furniture. He kicked the door shut with his bare foot and wrapped his arms around my waist. Then he cupped my face in his hands and stared into my eyes. I couldn’t figure out how he was able to look at me for several moments without blinking. I was blinking like a railroad signal.

“I am so happy,” he said, swooning.

I tried to speak, but nothing came out. I just blinked again.

Louis was as naked as the day he was born. I could feel something rock hard between his legs, pressing against my hip bone. It didn’t feel like anything that was big enough to scare me, but it felt big enough to put a big smile on my face. I finally got up enough nerve to reach down. I was impressed with what I felt. When I did look down, I was impressed with what I saw. I was too shy to look down long enough to give his goods a thorough inspection. But I had seen and felt enough to know that he wasn’t as well endowed as my husband. I knew that I couldn’t have everything, and besides, I didn’t want it to be
so
good that I would forget about my husband altogether. I wasn’t that kind of woman.

It was so refreshing to see a nice firm body again. Despite the fact that my husband’s body had turned into something that resembled Silly Putty, and he now had more hair on his legs than he had on his head, he was still attractive to me. That didn’t matter, though. He no longer felt the same way about me, and I looked much better now than I had when we got married ten years ago!

Louis had already told me several times how much he appreciated the way I looked. And I never got tired of hearing it.

He must have read my mind. “Annette, I swear to God, you look so damn good to me,” he said.

“You should have seen me last year,” I mumbled as I stumbled behind him across the floor. I didn’t know what made me say something that stupid. It didn’t mean anything to Louis, anyway. I could tell that from the puzzled look he gave me. The truth of the matter was, had he known the husky, muumuu-wearing plain Jane that I was last year, we probably would not have been in this motel 16

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room right now, preparing to fuck each other’s brains out. Well, he might have still been in the room, but not with me.

Losing four dress sizes and getting a complete makeover, from my thin, thorny hair down to my flat feet, had given me a lot of confidence. For the first time in my forty-six years, I didn’t consider the mirror my worst enemy. A lot of men had begun to notice me. A few had been so aggressive that I’d had to cuss them out and threaten to beat them off with a stick.

Unfortunately, the only man who didn’t seem to be the least bit fazed by my improved appearance, or even to notice it, was my husband. And he was the main person that I’d hoped to impress by going through my long-overdue metamorphosis!

“Annette, you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this moment,” Louis whispered in my ear. Then he licked it like he was licking a stamp. He kissed me gently on the lips and started to unbutton my white silk blouse and tug at the side of my leather skirt.

“The first time I saw you, I said to myself, ‘If that was my woman, I’d treat her like a Nubian queen.’ From that day on, I dreamed about you, with your sweet self, day and night. I never thought such a dream would become a reality.” This time I kissed him. “Now tell me what you want me to do for you. This is all about you. How much time do we have?”

“We don’t have to worry about the time. We’ve got plenty of it,”

I assured him, my hand massaging the prize between his legs.

“Is that right? Well, what about . . . uh . . . the dude?”

“What dude?” I asked, my voice sounding so husky that I almost didn’t recognize it.

“Your
husband,
” he said, giving me an incredulous look. “The last thing I want is for the brother to come busting through that door to reclaim his . . . uh . . . stuff.”

I tilted my head back, patted the micro braids wrapped around my head, and let out a loud sigh. “My husband wouldn’t bust through an eggshell to reclaim any stuff from me.” I pulled Louis to the bed, and for the next four hours, it was all about me.

C H A P T E R 4

I was already dressed and standing outside the motel room when Rhoda rolled up into the parking lot at ten minutes after eleven.

Not because I was anxious to leave, but because I didn’t want her to blow her horn and attract attention, or knock on the door and strike up a conversation with Louis. For some reason, I wanted Rhoda to be as far removed from this situation as possible. She knew all the rest of my deepest, darkest secrets, but this one was special.

And I wanted to keep most of it to myself for as long as possible.

“How was it?” That was the first thing she said as I climbed back into her SUV. My legs were so sore, they almost buckled. I wasn’t sure if it was because of my age or the thorough workout I’d just received. The blinking light in front of the motel made her vehicle look white, but it was silver. And she kept it in such pristine condition, it still looked and smelled new, even though it was almost two years old. She already had thick pads on the seats, but I noticed a sheet of plastic on the passenger seat, which had not been there before she dropped me off. I got offended right away, thinking that she had put it there so I wouldn’t drip or spread anything nasty on the seat after my tryst. I wanted to say something about it immediately, but I didn’t. Because had it been my car, I might have covered my seat with some plastic before I sat down, too. Even though 18

Mary Monroe

I had taken a quick shower with Louis, I still felt a little unclean, to say the least.

Now that I’d seen the extra protection that Rhoda had put on her seat, I was more determined to keep her as far out of the loop as possible. I was sorry that I had agreed to let her drive me to and from the motel, but she had insisted. The more I thought about that damn shit she’d put on the seat, the more it bothered me, so I knew I had to say something right away.

“Rhoda, you know I’m a clean woman,” I clucked, adjusting the seat belt.

“Say what?”

“I’m a clean woman. You didn’t have to put this plastic shit on your seat.” I pouted, my head bowed submissively.

“What is your problem? I put that plastic on the seat because I didn’t want you to drip barbecue sauce on it again, like you did the other night, when we picked up ribs for Pee Wee after we left the movies. And if you look down, you will see that I also put some plastic on the floor so you wouldn’t drip sauce on it, either.”

“Oh,” I mumbled, looking down and straightening the plastic on the floor with my shoe.

“Look, if you’re goin’ to be this fuckin’ paranoid, I advise you to stop this shit before it gets too deep. Or leave me out of it. I am your friend—your best friend—and I would never do somethin’

that damn tacky to you or anybody else that I invite into my SUV.

What made you think that I put plastic on my seat on account of what you did with your body?”

“I don’t know,” I said, with a mighty shrug. “I’ve never done this before.”

“I know that. I know your black ass better than you know yourself.” Rhoda gave me an affectionate pat on my thigh. “Now answer my question and tell me. How was it?”

“Okay, I guess,” I told her, shifting myself into a more comfortable position. I was glad that I had mentioned the plastic on Rhoda’s seat. She was the kind of person who liked to deal with negativity right away, and I admired her for that.

I felt better now, but the insides of my thighs were so sore, I had to sit with my legs spread a few inches apart. Other intimate parts of my body were also sore. My breasts felt like I’d been nursing a GOD AIN’ T BLIND

19

very hungry baby, and in a way, that was exactly what I had done.

My butt felt like it was on fire. I couldn’t wait to get home so I could take a long, hot bath with some Epsom salts and a very thorough douche. I had douched before I left the house, per Rhoda’s instructions, and Louis had used a condom. But douching with hot water helped ease the soreness after having prolonged and rough sex. I had learned this during my brief stint as a prostitute in my youth. “How was bowling? Did we win or lose? I need to know in case my husband asks me. Or did anything happen that I need to know about?”

“Is that all you’ve got to say?”

“What?” I asked dumbly.

Rhoda snorted and turned off her motor. She nodded toward the motel. Since Louis had paid for the room, he had decided to spend the night there, and I couldn’t blame him. As tacky as that room was, with its ugly brown plaid furniture and plastic curtains, it was still a step up from his apartment. I smiled just thinking about him roaming around in that room, still naked. There was no doubt in my mind that if I had stayed the night with him, we would have made love all night.

“Well, he still had a hard-on when I left.” I paused and chuckled.

“He’s a little countrified, though. A Southern homeboy to the bone.”

“Aren’t we all? Last time I checked, you were still from the South, too. And I know you worked on gettin’ rid of your Southern drawl when you moved north, but I worked on keepin’ mine. I want the world to know that I’m from what the Yankees call Bigfoot country.

Besides, I get compliments all the time about how cute and quaint my accent is. . . .”

I shrugged. “He’s from Greensboro, North Carolina, but you can hardly hear a trace of an accent. I guess he’s not as dedicated to that Southern twang as you are. And, frankly, I don’t give a damn, Miss Scarlett.”

Rhoda gave me an amused look and rolled her eyes. That was what she always did when I compared her to the incomparable Scarlett O’Hara from
Gone With the Wind.
“Then how is he countrified? Does he eat with his fingers, wear high-water pants and sus-penders, or does he pick his teeth with a straw from a broom?”

20

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“All of the above, and then some. He says ‘gwine’ for
going
and

‘rightcheer’ for
right here.
” I laughed. “But I thought I’d die when he referred to the cover on the motel bed as a kivver. My mama and daddy don’t even use that word anymore.”

Rhoda guffawed. “I haven’t heard a cover called a kivver since I was a young’un growin’ up in Alabama. But gwine is my favorite.

Now tell me, was he worth it?”

I nodded. “He was. He’s got a good head on him, if you know what I mean.”

Rhoda gave me a look of envy. “He sounds like my kind of man,”

she squealed. “Are you, uh, gwine to see him again?”

I shrugged and giggled for a few seconds. “I don’t know what I’m gwine to do,” I replied. “It depends on a few things.”

“Annette, if you don’t want to talk about this, just say so.”

I shuddered and let out a loud sigh. “Rhoda, he made me feel like a teenager again. He made me feel like a beauty queen. He . . .

he was like dope. And I couldn’t get enough. . . .” I turned to Rhoda, with a concerned look on my face. “This scares the hell out of me,” I admitted. “How have you managed to do your thing with Bully for all these years and not lose your mind?”

“Let me put it this way. Had I not started my affair with Bully, I would have lost my mind a long time ago.” Rhoda started the motor again and eased out into the street, looking straight ahead. “And by the way, we won the tournament tonight.”

“Excuse me?”

“Girl, you joined my bowlin’ team so you could have a cloak to cover this thing you started with Louis. Now if you don’t get your shit together, you will never be able to pull this off. I am your alibi for tonight, and any other night or day that you want to hook up with your baby boy.”

I cringed. The reference she’d made to Louis was true but disturbing. It was a painful reminder that there was a very wide gap between our ages. “Don’t call him that,” I pleaded. “That makes me feel like one of those aging celebrities known for fooling around with youngsters.”

“Well, he is a little on the youthful side, Cher,” Rhoda teased.

“I can see that, so you don’t have to remind me,” I snarled. “His GOD AIN’ T BLIND

21

age was the one thing that made me hold off this long. I had to tell him to stop saying ‘Yes, ma’am’ to me, because it made me feel my age.” I gave Rhoda a guarded look. From the blank expression on her face, I got the feeling that she didn’t know what to say next. I decided to steer the conversation in a less painful direction. “Now, going back to that countrified thing, he says ‘nome’ for
no, ma’am.
”

“Nome? Now you are goin’ real far up into the backwoods, Andy Griffith–Beverly Hillbillies country with that one,” Rhoda howled.

“He dozed off for a few minutes and snored so loud, the manager called from the office and said that the people in the rooms on both sides of us had called to complain.” We both laughed, cackling like hens.

“That’s hysterical, but let’s get back to his age. He’s at least as young as twenty-five, if he’s a day.”

“He’s thirty,” I said, nodding. “Had you and I not aborted my first child, he or she would be thirty. The truth is, I’m old enough . . .

I . . . I’m old enough to be Louis’s mother.”

“Uh-huh. That’s a fact. But if it doesn’t bother him, it shouldn’t bother you. And I meant what I just said. If you don’t want to talk about him, I understand.”

“No, maybe we should talk about him. If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have prepared myself better for, uh, certain things. Like losing my appeal to my husband. I was beginning to think that the fun part of my life was over. But I’m not ready for a rocking chair,” I declared.

“If you think that forty-six is old, the fun part of your life is over.

I’m a few months older than you, and I sure as hell don’t think my fun is over. My kids are grown, my house is paid for, I’ve got my husband and my lover under control, and I look damn good for a woman my age. Girl, these are the best years of our lives. You’d better enjoy them while you still can. Life is shorter than you think.