A Deeper Love Inside (44 page)

Outside his brownstone I rang four doorbells for four separate apartments, which made a bunch of different faces pop out the windows, including his.

“I’m in the middle of a production,” he said coldly. I knew he was angry that I had stood him up and ignored him.

“It’s cold out, but I’ll wait,” I said.

“So do that then,” he responded.

Outside I was hopping around in the December freeze blowing cold air out like cigarette smoke, waiting for him to either come out or let me in.

An hour later the front door opened. A girl our age came walking out and him after her. She cut her eyes at me. I just watched her. He saw us two staring at one another and said, “Ivory, this is Audrey. Audrey, this is Ivory.”

“You’re leaving, right,” I said to Audrey, no greetings. Why even front? She left.

“You wanna come in, or you want me to come out?” Elisha asked in an even tone, with no excitement or feeling in it.

“I’m froze,” was all I said. He widened the door to let me in.

“Your mother?” I asked, looking around at his pretty brownstone place.

“Not back from work yet,” he said. “Everybody’s out. Step into my room.” I walked behind him.

“Look at my hands.” I showed him my frozen fingers and red palms. He came up close, grabbed both of my hands and pulled them underneath his shirt, then moved them underneath his armpits. His skin was warm like a bakery oven. My heart went crazy. All of my muscles began to move in a way that I could feel them, even between my thighs. I felt blood rushing about and even my then little titties, especially the nipples, seemed to swell. My panties got wet. I was warming up rapidly. I fidgeted, afraid that I might pee. I was overwhelmed and embarrassed.

“You know what I hate?” he asked me, breaking our soft silence, us still standing close together, him still heating up my body. “I hate when I show a girl my true emotion, and then she starts acting fucked up because of it. It would be better if she would show me her true feeling, too,” he said.

“Who are you talking about? That girl who just left here?” I asked.

“See what I mean?” he said calmly with a straight face. “You know it’s all about
you
. You know how I feel about
you
,” he said.

What could I do? That’s what I said to myself. I felt Elisha did not know how extreme my love runs. If I told him my true feeling, what could happen next? I would be in the corner of his bedroom in his bed, lying next to him like I never had. His touch would make it impossible for me to ever leave him alone. I would move in. No, I just would never leave in the first place. I wouldn’t even go back to collect my things. I wouldn’t need no food, nothing. I wouldn’t need nothing but him. I would be that girl who Momma talked about. I would love him a hundred thousand times more than he could ever love me. On the strength of just him holding my hands underneath his shirt and tucked beneath his armpits, that first touch and powerful feeling, he was stuck with my love forever, and what if it drowned him, and I was left broken and useless like my momma?

“You’re not gonna say nothing?” he asked me.

“Please can you touch my face?” I asked him. He placed his hands
on both sides of my face. His fingertips grazed my neck. A wave of feeling shot through my body. I stepped in even closer.

“Elisha,” I heard a female voice say. He stepped back. “You didn’t hear me come in?” she asked. “Come here, let me speak to you for a minute.”

“Ivory, you can sit on my bed,” he said to me as he walked out. I stayed standing.

“Look at you,” I heard her saying, but I couldn’t see them. “This is getting real serious. Does Mom know how you are in love with this young girl and got her in your room when no one else is home?”

“Sheba, be easy. We weren’t doing nothing,” I heard Elisha saying.

“You’re not doing nothing now that I’m here,” she said.

SCENE 2

Tuesday, December 14, on Elisha’s fourteenth birthday I wanted to celebrate with him. But Siri and I discussed how we both needed to stay away from him. “You’ll lose control,” Siri warned me. “And that’s okay if you want to surrender to him. But don’t act like you can be around him without breaking your rules, ‘No touching, no kissing, no giving your whole heart to him.’ ” It was extreme like that. I couldn’t tame my feelings, or balance them out so I planned to stay away. Today I would drop off a birthday cake and gift to him and leave.

“Why are you looking your prettiest if you don’t want to encourage him?” Siri asked me, as I picked up the shopping bag to leave to find Elsiha.

I went by his high school at 2:30 and waited for him to come out. He did, surrounded by friends, laughing and joking. I stayed to the side and waited. As they talked shit, and moved around to stay warm, eventually the boys all gave each other a pound and went their separate ways. Elisha was still standing there, with that girl Audrey. I walked across their path so he would see me. He did.

“Porsche!” He called out and began coming over, leaving Audrey behind. She caught on and rushed over also. He was staring at me. I was staring back at him and wouldn’t even give the girl a glance.

“Tell her to leave,” I said.

“Audrey, I’ll catch you later,” he told her. I began walking toward his brownstone and he followed without hesitation.

“You stay away, then show up to tease me, right? Is it a game?” he asked.

“Definitely not,” I told him. “I’m trying to keep a nice young girl out of trouble,” I said.

“This young man is no trouble,” he said. “It’s my birthday. You have to at least give me something that I ask for.”

“Something like what?” I stopped walking and turned towards him.

“Something like, let’s be tight like how we were before. Stop playing and let’s talk and meet up every day. I mean once a week, Fridays at three like before. I think I messed up when I gave you the phone. You talked to me one time over that phone and that’s it. My man said, ‘You gotta treat girls like prostitutes,
then
they’ll love you.’ ”

“That’s crazy,” I said.

“He’s old school. That was some Slick Rick shit.” He separated himself from his friend’s words of advice.

“Elisha, I want to ask you for something, and I want to give you something.”

“Ask whatever you want,” he said, always confident.

“The truth is, I can’t not love you.” We were walking.

“Can’t not? You do or you don’t?” he asked. His eyebrows were raised and he stopped walking.

“I can’t not. It means, I love you and it is impossible for me not to love you.” His closed lips spread into a bright smile.

“But I’m not a regular girl. I have a lot of things going on all the time. My life is crazy. A lot of the time I’m sad, really sad, and sometimes I’m angry and don’t wanna talk, can’t talk. Sometimes I disappear for a little while. Sometimes I disappear for a long time. None of it has anything to do with you,” I said.

“Don’t you think I know that?” he said, serious-faced.

“I’m twelve. You’re fourteen. Happy Birthday, Elisha! Let’s me and you meet up on my thirteenth birthday, July 26. Then we can start up again from there.”

“Sounds crazy. What’s a man supposed to do until then? Eight
long months?” he asked me, looking sincerely hurt. When I didn’t answer, he also saw my seriousness. He hugged me in the ice-cold wind. I liked that feeling too much, him standing taller than me and his arms were strong. He held me tightly so I would feel that he meant it.

I handed him the shopping bag with the homemade carrot cake that I made for him with care. On top of the cake container was my gift-wrapped birthday gift for him.

“Don’t open it until I leave.”

“Then don’t give it to me yet. I’m walking you home,” he said, confident and determined. I knew there was no space for me to argue that he shouldn’t.

“You never danced for me,” he said as we walked.

“You don’t want to see that,” I told him.

“Yes I do!” he said, becoming excited.

“Then you’ll be so in love you’ll probably come and kidnap me and hold me hostage till I’m old enough.”

“Old enough for what?” he said calmly and knowingly.

“Old enough to do what we want to do,” I said.

“You said you love me, so don’t you go loving no one else,” Elisha said with a calm but serious face. He grabbed my hand and held it. My heart thumped.

Walking and wrapped in silence, it was settling into our hearts that we had to separate. Both of us probably wondered if we would love each other more or less or not at all by my thirteenth birthday.

“Don’t open it in the street,” I told him. “Open my gift in your room, alone.”

SCENE 3

On Saturday, July 25, at midnight, I heard a thump on the iron floor door. I froze with fear. Last time a knock came like that, Momma had fallen out and it was hard as hell for me to lift the iron lid with her body lying on the top of it. I ran to the cement stairs and pushed gently on the door. She was definitely not lying on it again. Why wasn’t she coming in? “Momma,” I said, softly lifting the lid. When
she didn’t answer or come in, I lifted my head out a little bit more to look.

“It’s July 26,” he said calmly. I couldn’t see him. It was Elisha. I dropped the lid in a swift hurry. The steel slammed. My heart pounded. I ran down the stairs and then I ran back up, then down again. How did he find me?

I was so excited, nervous, surprised, angry, embarrassed, ashamed, attracted, I couldn’t think in complete or orderly thoughts. I stood staring at the iron floor door. He didn’t knock again or say anything else. Then slowly, I walked back up the cement stairs. I pushed it open, stuck only my hand out and waved him in. I ran down the steps and turned off the lights, but I don’t know why I did.

The floor door opened.

“Elisha,” I said softly.

“Turn on the lights,” he said.

“Find me.”

“Say something. Keep talking,” he said.

Siri was so happy for me, she began humming beautifully.

Elisha wasn’t talking at all, but I could hear him breathing.

Strong hands landed on my breasts, which were full now, no longer only swollen nipples. He felt around some, a light touch, his fingertips ending up at my nipples. He squeezed them, then pulled me into his embrace.

My nightgown was thin. Not until my naked body heated up like a tea kettle, did a thought speed through my mind that I should’ve gotten dressed. It disappeared as quick as it came.

Elisha was stroking my face. It felt so fucking good and so foreign and so powerful my pussy began pounding and pounding until it erupted. I was so wet between my legs I was embarrassed, but the good feeling was still racing around my body so strongly it didn’t matter. His fingers were on my two lips and he parted them. I felt his lips over mine, and my mouth opened easily. He slid in his tongue and my legs trembled. It was my first kiss on my thirteenth birthday, underneath the floor where it was hot, in the dark with no windows. He didn’t need to say that he still loved me or missed me or wanted to get up in me. His tongue and his body was saying it all. The sensation of
my nightgown silk rubbing on my silky skin made me feel like I was in a complete loss of control. Could I die like this? It felt like something so good that after that there would be no reason to live. All I could hear was our breathing, tongues moving, lips sucking; then, him taking off his shirt and lifting my nightgown over my hips. Suddenly he grabbed my pussy hairs all at once like someone who was snatching a head of lettuce from the earth. Even the pull felt good. I fell to the floor. I didn’t have to tell him nothing, he was right beside me in less than half a second. He was feeling my whole body, my bare skin hot enough to fry an egg.

“Elisha,” I said.

“Sshh,”
he said. A finger went in me, and my insides bursted like sparklers, firecrackers, and M80s on the fourth.

“Elisha,” I said softly again.

“Stop frontin’ and give in to me,” he said. I heard his zipper opening and crawled away. I felt like if he found me, I would give him everything I ever had including my mind, body, and money. I’d have his babies and be following him anywhere and do whatever he said. I was so open, my heart and my legs and my mind and my everything! “What the fuck,” I said to myself. “I’m worse than a slave.”

“Okay. Don’t hide from me. I won’t hunt you down,” he said.

“If I touch you some, do we have to go all the way?” I asked him.

“Do you want to touch me?” he asked.

“I do, all over,” I told him. I crawled back over and sat on his lap. I felt his hair and his face, his neck and his shoulders, his chest and his arms. When I reached down and touched his hardness, I got too excited. He started kissing on me. I found myself moaning and singing.

“How can you touch me like that and not go all the way?” he asked me.

“I can’t,” I said.

“You can’t?” he repeated. He made my body shake some more for the fourth time. Then he stopped.

“Turn the light on. I want to see you.” I pulled myself up from the floor searching in the dark for a switch or the long string. My whole body was wet. My hair and gown soaked the cloth hugging my nipples and my hips, my nipples poking through powerfully. “You’re
so beautiful,” he said. “I missed you like crazy. Don’t ask me to leave you alone no more.”

Watching Poppa from a distance for my first eight years of my young life taught me that we all have to hustle. Lina taught me that speaking nice and using manners wins friends, connections, and opens doors. Riot showed me to always seize and invest in the right opportunities even when the best opportunities meant using people.

Mr. Sharp once admitted that he had done a bid when he was young. When his time was served, no one would give him a chance or a job. He taught me, “Working a job will get you started but no matter how long you work a job, it will never make you rich.” The people who want stacks have to think smart, own their own businesses, choose the right products, or sell excellent services, and have the ability to negotiate their way around every obstacle. I definitely listened.

“Santiaga,” he said, “you’re gonna make it big in this world because you are a natural negotiator. Since you’re a beautiful young woman, you got the ‘edge’ over any smart man. Never sell your body. The first time you do, your value decreases immediately and keeps on decreasing until you’re worthless. Don’t let these men play with you. Use your mind to think, your talk to negotiate. Your beauty is just bait. Make them pay, but never let ’em touch it. Those are the secrets of life.”