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“I don’t really know what to say, Lee. You looked me up on the Internet?”
Quickly, Lee jumped on the defensive. “I’m not a stalker, if that’s what you’re asking. I wanted to know more about you, without having to ask your husband. Your work with Children’s Hospital and GW should’ve gotten more recognition than what I saw.”
“Well, at the time, Walter was up for provost, and I had to devote all of my time to him. I passed the torch to a colleague,” I said humbly.
Lee had a death grip on my hands, and I was afraid for her to let them go in fear of never having someone hold them like that again. On the wall over the bar was a clock that displayed seven o’clock. Considering we hadn’t eaten yet, it would be well into the morning before I got home, but I didn’t care. I only wanted to spend as much time with her as I could.
“This was good for me,” I said. “I needed to get away.”
I searched in her eyes for an unspoken response, and I found it.
It was ten o’clock by the time we made it back to Penn Station, and we were back in another bedroom car.
“Meena, I hope you enjoyed yourself tonight. I’m sure I scared the hell out of you with my impromptu lunch date.”
Once again, she jumped up to the top bunk, but this time in her heels. Her long legs were dangling over my bunk.
Chuckling to myself, I relaxed my body on the lower berth, and I sought no forgiveness for what happened next. Solemnly, I took those same hands that had trembled during dinner and removed Lee’s shoes from her feet. I grabbed her pinky toe with my tongue and caressed every single toe with my lips until her entire foot was saturated with my essence. Lee slid down from the bed and met my lips with hers.
“I want to make love to you over and over again, until you scream my name like doves.”
I had no idea what I was doing. All I knew was that it felt right. Button by button, I exposed Lee’s bosom to me and cupped her voluptuous curves with my hands. I reclined her against my bunk and removed every stitch of her clothing until I’d reached her bare skin. Standing in the moving car as we bustled across the tracks extending north to south, I disrobed my thousand-dollar frock and lay next to her. I kissed every part of her, every part I could get to, and, in my mind, I made her all mine.
Lee, returning my affections, mounted me and rested her body against me. Motionless, our hearts beat synchronized with time. I held her nipples between my lips and softly planted my palms around her buttocks. I didn’t know what I was doing, but, as she rocked back and forth in my lap moaning and whimpering my name, I knew what I had done. With my body stretched against the sheets, Lee slid between my legs and spread them; landing kisses inside my thighs that eventually landed onto the lips of my pussy. Riding a wave of lust, Lee and I journeyed into a place where our erotic souls met and fell in love.
I got home early the next morning with a barrage of questions from Walter. I told him I’d spent some time with Melba and had lost track of time.
Two months after that evening, I got a call at home from Lee telling me she had gotten a job offer from Emory University and wanted to know if I’d meet her in Atlanta to help her look for an apartment. Walter had told me she was leaving but refused to go into any details. Did they get her a job? Did any of her leads come through? I missed her and jumped at the chance and took the Red Eye out from Dulles.
Lee picked me up from the airport, and, because we hadn’t seen or talked to each other since New York, I was all giddy inside. I’d thought about her and wondered where she’d fit into my life, if at all possible. We rode back to her hotel room at the Hilton and went down to Trader Vic’s for a nightcap.
“Meena, I’ve been thinking about you every day for the past two months, and I can’t get you out of my head. I want to ask you something.”
Secretly, I yearned for Lee unlike I’d ever yearned for anyone. In the shower, in the tub, in the bed—everywhere, I had to have her. “What’s on your mind?”
“I want you here with me.”
“As in leave my family and move to Atlanta?”
Teasing a piece of ice with her straw, Lee softly answered, “Why, yes, that’s what I’m asking. That night on the train meant everything to me. I’ve had lovers in the past, and none of them were ever able to do what you did.”
“And what was that?”
“You made me fall in love,” she said tearfully.
While Lee slept into the wee hours of the morning, I decided to brave the streets of Atlanta to think. I walked through the lobby and got a cab, asking to be driven up Peachtree and back. As we made a left on Ralph McGill and a right onto Peachtree, I contemplated my unhappiness and where it had gotten me thus far. I was nowhere. In thirty years of marriage, I’d found nothing close to what I’d found with Lee in those few hours I’d been with her. I’d experienced something I wanted with me for an eternity, and, if it meant leaving Walter, my kids, my grandbabies, and my miserably boring life, then so be it.
Divine destiny is what motivates mother, daughter, author, playwright Laurinda D. Brown to do what she does—write novels and plays that portray real people in true-to-life situations no different than your average neighbor next door. Brown explains, “Growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, and graduating from Howard University in Washington, D.C., exposed me to the varied and diverse sides of human nature. It also gave me the opportunity to observe people and their situations and try to discern what made them do the things they did. I realized that people are people. My writing h
elped me work through my own issues, emotions and circumstances. Writing expresses my take on the world.” Before Walk Like A Man—The Play, Brown began her literary journey with Fire & Brimstone (Strebor Books), the 2005 Lambda Literary Award finalist for “Best Debut Lesbian Fiction,” followed by UnderCover (Strebor Books) and Walk Like A Man, the 2006 Lambda Literary Award winner for “Best Lesbian Erotica.” She is a featured writer in the new Nghosi Books anthology, Longing, Lust, and Love: Black Lesbian Stories and most recently penned Strapped, an urban novel about child sexual abuse and its effects on a young woman’s sexuality. Laurinda resides with her two daughters in the greater Atlanta metro area where she is currently working on her explosive upcoming historical fiction novel, The Highest Price for Passion (Strebor Books/Atria/Simon and Schuster), release date: August 2008.
Bread and Roses
Anna Black
“Union! Union!”
Monica Lewis lifted her sign and chanted along with the rest of the workers who marched outside the hotel. It was a hot, sweltering day. Probably the hottest day she had experienced since arriving in Tucson four months ago.
