Let It Shine (11 page)

They’d been able to send each other notes through prison workers sympathetic to the Freedom Riders’ plight, but he’d still missed her something terrible. Their reunion on the wagon, after he thought he’d lost her for good, had been too short. Having her warm and smooth beside him as he’d imagined for so long—it was more powerful than any rush of endorphins after a boxing match.

He loved her, even if it was too early to tell her that. She’d already skittered away when he’d jokingly dropped to one knee when they met outside the gates of Parchman, reminding him marriage was illegal where they were from, so he tucked that idea away for a time when she was ready, if she ever was. Ivan wasn’t in any rush, despite the fact that he’d nearly spilled before he touched her the night before.

His member stiffened at the thought of their first time making love. They’d both known what awaited them as they wandered from the bus depot; even the disapproving look the man at the motel’s front desk gave them had done nothing to dampen how much they wanted each other.

Nothing could stop that, it seemed.

The room they were in wasn’t anywhere near good enough for Sofie, but it beat the amenities at Parchman. After weeks of crawling in his skin, the shower at the motel had seemed like a spa. When Sofie had emerged from the bathroom and laid her towel down on the bed, fear and determination and lust in her gaze, it’d seemed like whatever Christians must imagine heaven to be like.

Sofie stirred beneath his hand and turned sleepy brown eyes on him, disturbing his recollection of the way she’d been so pliant beneath him just hours before. Ivan felt pinned by her gaze, like he’d been hit by a surprise blow.

“Did you know you laugh in your sleep?” he asked because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. “It’s kind of creepy. What were you dreaming about?”

Her eyes shimmered with mirth as she shook her head. “I don’t remember. All I know is you were there, and that made everything all right.”

Warmth rushed through Ivan, converging at a particular point in his chest

“Something’s poking me,” she said suddenly. Her voice was husky with sleep, but she was alert enough to reach down and embrace the hardening length of him in her fist. Pleasure marched up Ivan’s spine as she smiled at him innocently while caressing him beneath the sheets. “There’s a strange object in the bed with us. Maybe I should investigate.”

“Ever intrepid Sofronia,” he said, the S in her name coming out as a hiss because her touch felt so good.

He closed his fist around her hand as she stroked him, preventing her from making him blow too fast. When she released him, uncertain, he rolled over so that she was beneath him. He slid his arms beneath her back so that he cradled her, and settled between her legs, teasingly close to her warm entrance. “My, my, my. Little miss church girl sure has developed an appetite.”

Sofie ran her hands over his back and up through his hair. “I’ll have you know the most erotic thing I’ve ever read was at church. Song of Solomon,” she said. The word
erotic
on her lips was enough to make his hips shift forward, seeking the pleasure of her warmth, but then she kept going. “First line: ‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mo
uth.’
”

She stared at him expectantly, and he did as she commanded. His lips grazed hers, but she kissed him deeply, using her hands to pull his mouth down onto hers. He groaned into that kiss, and she licked at his lips, sliding her tongue in and taking what she wanted. That Sofie felt no need to be timid with him sent a shiver of pleasure through his body, one he felt in his toes.

He pulled his head back for a moment and caught her eye. “That’s Old Testament, baby. Ketuvim. If you think I wasn’t flipping to that section and having impure thoughts at the back of the synagogue, then you don’t know me very well.” She pressed her head back into the pillow and laughed, and Ivan had never seen anything more beautiful. He kissed her chin. “I have my own favorite line from the Songs.”

Sofie put a hand over his mouth. “Wait! Let me guess.” She stared at him and then graced him with a wicked smile. “‘
Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits.’”

Ivan licked at her palm, and she shivered as she pulled it away. “I guess you do know me,” he said.

“Not as well as I’d like to.” She reached between them and guided him inside of her. They both gasped, and Ivan took another harsh breath as her tightness squeezed along the length of his shaft. He bit his lip, hoping that the pain would distract from the pleasure that was threatening to send him over the edge much too soon.

“Oh!” He looked down into her face and was met with a look of surprised satisfaction.

“This feels better than last night, I imagine?” he asked as he thrust into her. He was glad his voice didn’t come out a strained squeak—just because he felt like a teenager with no control didn’t mean he had to sound like one.

She pressed her nails into his back and arched beneath him. “Yes, Ivan. Yes.”

“Good,” he growled. “Let’s get reacquainted, then.”

After that, there was no banter, no chitchat, just the overwhelmingly sweet pleasure of teaching a good girl some very naughty things.

~~~

Ivan watched Sofie step out of Jack’s Brick House and hand a cookie to a little girl with round cheeks and two puffy pigtails, and something in him shifted yet again.

They’d returned home two days before, and had each been busy catching up with the life they’d left behind for a Mississippi jail. Now they were at Jack’s, not for training, but to celebrate history—a history he was now a part of. People were as convivial as they had been in prison, but instead of being crammed into a cell as they laughed and sang to pass the time, they were outside surrounded by blue sky, green grass, and the smell of meat on the grill. It was a shock to the system to go from mealy bread to tender sides of beef and juicy burgers. Ivan could barely eat, but he was happy to sit and observe.

He felt an overwhelming tenderness as Sofie interacted with Jack and his wife, the people who had been a secondary family to him. They weren’t so different, despite the way people on the stared as they walked hand in hand. And they’d be all right, in the long run. Their road wouldn’t be easy, but they weren’t the first to travel it. Besides, easy was for chumps.

Jack stood up from where he was talking to some of the younger boxers, the only people who hadn’t heard the story of how he beat Rocky Marciano in an exhausting sparring match but would never be credited. As the boys chatted excitedly after the climax of the tale, Jack dug around in an icebox for a soda and then chimed one of the ringside bells he’d brought outside for the occasion.

“Everyone, I just want to thank you for coming to this first annual Juneteenth Celebration at Jack’s Brick House. I don’t know why it took me so long to honor my grandfather in this way, but this year seems like a good year to start.” He paused and took a sip of soda, and his mouth pulled into a grimace. Anyone who knew Jack understood that meant he was fighting deep emotion. Better to look mean than to look weak, he always said. “Sometimes it seems like the battle for freedom for our people is never-ending. It can make you bitter, when you think about the unfairness of it all. But right now, we’re seeing a new generation taking up the mantle. I wish these youngins didn’t have to, but I can’t help but celebrate their determination, their focus, and their bravery.”

He glanced at Sofie, who had walked over to stand beside Ivan.

“On this Juneteenth, I want to remember our people’s liberation from slavery, but also to remind everyone of the continuing journey. I might not live to see it happen, but one day we will truly be free.”

He scowled and took a sip of his soda as the guests began to clap. Ivan felt a lump in his throat as he looked at Jack’s puff-tailed granddaughter skip up to console her Pop-Pop. If he and Sofie had a child, would he experience the same gut-wrenching fear that Jack must feel for all the young ones in his family?

“Sofie, the boy next to you says you can sing. Can you hum a little something for us?” Jack asked, trying to draw the attention away from himself. Ivan felt Sofie tense. He’d heard her voice across the yard at Parchman every now and again, but this was different. That night in the motel she’d told him how she hadn’t sung since Miss Delia’s death, and she still hadn’t here in their hometown. But she looked up at him and asked, “Will you be my backup singer?”

He smiled at her and saw how her eyes brightened with emotion when he did. “Only if you’ll be my ring-girl at the fight next month.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh please. I still have some sense of propriety, Ivan. Just not in the bedroom. Now follow my lead.”

She turned to face the crowd and took a deep breath, and when she opened her mouth and belted out the first line, everyone else’s mouths dropped open too. The dormouse had gone into hibernation, and Sofie let her voice unfurl full-bellied and proud, as if she wanted Miss Delia to hear, wherever she was.

“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” She glanced at him with a smile that made him want to kiss her, but she’d stomp his toes if he tried it. “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.”

Ivan joined her on the next line, knowing no one would be paying attention to his voice anyway. It didn’t matter.

This was Sofronia, and he’d follow her anywhere.

Epilogue

1964, Virginia

Sofie placed the to-do list on the freshly scrubbed laminate of the kitchen counter. Like everything else in the small room, it was a bright, buttery yellow; something straight from the 1955 edition of
House Beautiful
magazine. She’d hated it when she and Ivan first moved in, but it was actually nice to come home to something cheery when the neighbors all gave you the cold shoulder. She wondered if it was the afro she was growing out; when she’d viewed the apartment, her hair had been straightened with a hot comb—so that it was limp and lifeless, nonthreatening. People had only been mildly rude then, not openly hostile. Ivan joked that it was because he refused to do their taxes. They both knew the real reason.

She scanned the list, or rather the complex groupings of items, complete with headings, sublists, and footnotes. The orderly rows of fastidious handwriting made her feel in control, even when she was so nervous that she was sure she’d sweat through the pretty pink A-line dress she’d sewn specially for today. Under the heading HANNUKKAH, she’d written little notes that she could reference if she got too nervous:
Maccabee story; oil is important; mitzvah (find out from Ivan); berakot (blessings) – l’hadlik, she-asah nisim, shehekianu; do not blow out the shamash; ask Mr. Friedman to touch his horns.

“Ivan!” she shouted in amused annoyance. He liked to make his own additions to her lists, especially when he knew her nerves were frayed.

He stepped out of their bedroom, still in the process of pulling his simple white t-shirt down over his muscular chest and abdomen. She caught a glimpse of smooth skin and a dark trail of hair, and then he tucked the shirt into his Levi’s. His dark eyes homed in on her as he walked toward the kitchen. Maybe it was his bruised cheek, a remnant of his last match, that gave his approach a thrilling hint of danger. Or the way his full lips pulled up into the kind of smile that usually ended with her bent over the arm of the couch, the kitchen sink, or the dining room table. Everywhere but the bed, which good girls like her had been taught was the 
only
 place for such activities. She knew better now.

Now, Ivan walked up and gripped the counter on either side of her, hemming her in. The old Sofie would have been embarrassed at the way he made her blush like a sinner at a church revival. The new Sofie was still embarrassed, but leaned her hips forward, loving the contact with his muscular thighs.

“I’ve told you not to tamper with my lists,” she said, holding his gaze. His hands still gripped the counter, but now they slid along the metal trim, both of them reaching her hips simultaneously. His hands briefly cupped her curves as they moved upward, and then encircled her waist. The weight of them resting there was just as potent as a caress, maybe more so; it was a silent reminder of everything he could do to her.

Ivan grinned, heedless of the chipped front tooth that he was usually embarrassed to reveal; she found it so endearing her heart hurt. “And I’ve told you that if you intend to make me sit through a Hanukkah dinner with both of our fathers, I’m going to need something to look forward to besides malevolent stares from one side of the table and blatant disapproval from the other. I get enough of those as it is.”

His hands began to make small smoothing motions over her hips, as if he were fixing her dress or contemplating taking it off. She never knew with him.

He lifted one shoulder. “I figure you can ask my dad if he has horns under his yarmulke, I can ask your dad if he wants some watermelon, and they’ll both be so mad about those put-downs they’ll forget we’re living in sin. It’ll be a gas.”

She made an incredulous noise and pushed at his solid shoulder, which didn’t budge. “If you even breathe the word ‘watermelon’ in front of my father, he’ll stick that menorah where the sun don’t shine so fast it’ll still be lit. And I’ll help him.”

“Weren’t you the one who talked me into the whole nonviolence thing?” he asked, brows raised.

“Violence is never the answer,” Sofie replied solemnly. “Unless you sass my daddy. Then I’ll have to put a hurtin’ on you.”

He laughed. “Okay, then. I guess I’ll use my endurance training to withstand the family fun we’ll have to sit through tonight.” His smile faded as he ducked his head and looked into her eyes. He ran one callused knuckle over her jaw line. “Sof? What’s wrong?”

“I’m…I’m nervous.” She knew Ivan was too, which accounted for his joking, but this was important to her. She wanted Ivan’s father to like her. She wanted her father to accept Ivan. She wanted to have the fun family gatherings she remembered from her childhood, before her mother passed away, not an acrimonious night where everyone merely tolerated one another. Was that not in the cards for her, just because she’d fallen in love with a Jewish brawler instead of an Alpha Phi Alpha?