Black Silk (40 page)

Mrs. Sweet Pussy is walking with her wife and grandkids. One of the children pretends he is playing volleyball with a purple
balloon. Sausage Boy sees the balloon and remembers her thick dark ink. Sausage Boy is with her partner. They are carrying
signs on their way to a rally. The girlfriend has no idea that the graying, older woman walking toward them, dripping in coral
and freshwater pearls, has fucked her partner on several occasions in positions she herself is too landlocked to imagine.

They all pass each other like two friendly schools of fishes, the air around them mingling like warm currents in a small tide
pool. Mrs. Sweet Pussy nods, Hello, and thinks that both women combined are younger than her own daughter. Sausage Boy nods
back, like a dolphin pecking with his snout. Mamere. Mamon. My Pussy.

They don’t know each other at all. They fuck each other very well. Their bodies have a secret language, a private little alphabet
.Mother
is the first letter
.Father
is a dead language they laugh about no longer speaking
.Pussy
is a letter like an
s
or a
t.
They use it all the time.

The young woman’s mouth smells like warm tortillas and her fingers feel like tightly packed blood sausage. The older woman’s
breasts are like a million mothers. She is a walking ocean of sweet warm milk.

_________________

by Krystal G. Williams

It’s Wednesday, six-thirty
A.M.
Summer solstice—the longest day of the year. The sun has only been up for an hour or so, but already the dreaded Houston
humidity has kicked in. I don’t mind. Not really. I hardly notice the slick cool trickles of sweat making random tracks down
my back. Perspiration beads across my forehead, settles in little droplets underneath my nose and across my top lip. If I
stay here much longer, I’ll melt. But I don’t intend to be here long. No, not long at all. I’m on a mission, with no time
for mistakes or delays.

Sounds of summer are all around me, chirping, buzzing, leaves rustling at the barest hint of a breeze. I can tell that it’s
going to be another beautiful day in Memorial Park. I sit at the far edge of the parking lot—car windows tinted as dark as
the law allows are partially lowered to give me a good view of the area. From where I sit, I can see the die-hard athletes
preparing for their morning run. The savvy ones go in pairs, with either a partner or a faithful, if not willing, pet. If
I listen really closely, I can hear the
snap-snap
of a leather leash to make the less willing more so, or the crunch of a well-deserved doggie treat given after a drag around
the park.

The not-so-smart single runners stretch to make themselves limber. These joggers will be moving faster than the ones who’ve
paired up. They’re racing as much against the probability that they’ll be singled out for mugging as they are racing against
the rising sun with its heat-sapping strength.

“Looks like it’s gonna be another scorcher.”

A bike patrol officer coasts by. The sounds of gears changing, chain rattling, draw my eye. He gives me a half nod. I nod
back, then fan my face with my hand. Three months’ worth of recognition in that nod. He’s seen me here before. It only took
a couple of times of me stepping out of the car, going through the motions of the runner-style stretches and warm-up exercises,
before duty-honed suspicion turned to pleasant surprise at seeing me here every Wednesday so diligently.

What am I doing here? What is my mission? Certainly not to run. Diligence, yes. But not for the benefit of my own body. It’s
another body that I’m waiting and watching for. It’s a body that I’ve come to know and love just as dearly as my own.
Stalking
is such an ugly word. And I’m sure Mr. Bike Patrol Officer wouldn’t nod so kindly to me if he thought that’s what I was doing.
I prefer not to use that word.
Diligent admiration
sounds so much better.

I check my watch. 6:42
A.M.
Three more minutes and, yes… finally. Here he comes. Right on schedule. I get back into my car and slide farther into the
comfort of cloth seats trimmed in vinyl. A popular newsstand rag raised as my shield. My ears, so accustomed to the sounds
of the park, pick up the one sound I’ve been waiting for.

Day-Glo orange shoestrings, leather uppers with carefully crafted rubber soles slap against the pavement in an oh-so-familiar
rhythm. I’ve been listening to that sound every Wednesday for that past three months. Steady. Strong. Purposeful.

Bronze skin streaked in sweat, white tank top, navy spandex leggings and gray, boxer-style shorts worn over them flash by.
His stride is long and controlled. Biceps sculpted by hours of Soloflex pump in sync with the contractions of rock-hard thighs
and ultracut calves. Power. Endurance. Commitment. Ten long strides and he disappears around a bend in the path. One hour’s
wait for one minute of watching. I should be disappointed, but I’m not. Not really. It’s a trade-off that I’ve come to accept
after all this time. But I can’t help thinking,
If only I had the power to manipulate time.
What would I do if I could make time bend to my will? If I had such power, would I end world hunger? Would I command world
peace? My wants are simple, but all-consuming. All I want to do is sit and watch him, over and over, until time itself gets
sick of watching the same scene and changes the channel.

6:49
A.M.
Still on schedule. I back out of the parking space and onto the feeder road. A U-turn under the freeway, three lights, a
side street, then another parking lot. This time I’m in for a longer wait. I’ve got to give him time to stretch out the kinks,
chat with his frat, and saunter back to his car.

7:20
A.M.
and the flow coming out of the coffeehouse is measurably more frantic than the flow going in. Caffeine-induced energy. Get
the morning started with a jolt of mocha motivation. Out of the corner of my eye I see him. Full, firm lips are clamped to
a white, lidded Styrofoam cup. Enough care taken in that first sip to keep from singeing his tongue. Oh, lucky coffee cup!
Flecks of sugar foam are perfectly camouflaged by a salt-and-pepper mustache. He’s got his Wednesday-morning usual—one large
coffee, one small bag with a bran muffin. That will be his breakfast. Got to be good for the doctor. Got to get that cholesterol
level down. Only he and I know about the extra raspberry jelly-filled donut that he’ll pinch on from about noon until the
end of the day. A steady stolen supply of saturated fat and complex carbohydrates, like a glucose drip, will get him through
the rest of the day with just the right edge. Only he and I know.

Secrets within secrets. He doesn’t know that I know. I keep that to myself, even as I keep my diligent admiration to myself.
If only I had as much power over him as that jelly donut. If only I could be the one to feed him, to give him his sustenance.
Why can’t I be the one he longs to taste? I could go down as smooth as raspberry jam. I could make him smack his lips, long
for another.

8:15
A.M.
and I’ve got to go if I want to get back in time for lunch. We’ve got a standing lunch date on Wednesdays—he at his table
and me at mine. At the sandwich shop, a sea of green-and-white-striped umbrellas stands between us. But that has never stopped
me from enjoying my meal. Neither does the lack of conversation. In my head we’ve talked for hours. I know him so well. On
Wednesdays past, I imagined that I knew what he was thinking. Nibble. Nibble. Munch. Munch. Wishing there was something more
appetizing than tuna on wheat for lunch. No mustard. No mayo. Only a little pepper to kill the bland, fish taste. If only
he knew he could make a meal of me. Spread me, smear me with any condiment he wishes. I wouldn’t complain. I would be better
than that stale jelly donut that he’s always got stashed in his bottom desk drawer. I could be there for him. And I wouldn’t
even attract the ants.

8:20
A.M.
The freeway is packed by now. Inch by inch, I crawl. For the first time today, I’m starting to feel a little anxious. This
traffic has put a serious crimp in my plans. I’ve got a 9:30 in the Fifth Ward to touch up my roots. If I’m a minute late,
I know I’m going to be six deep in the waiting room. Chantalliqua doesn’t play. When she says be there, you be there. So I
get there, passing two blue-and-white squad cars—one in the process of giving someone a ticket for trying to pass up traffic
in the breakdown lane and the other simply stuck between an eighteen-wheeler and an overturned cattle car.

When I arrive at the beauty shop, Chantalliqua is as chatty as ever—cussing and fussing at the high price of hair rinses,
and the worsening quality of wigs and weaves, and at Erica Kane because she wouldn’t know a good man if he came long and bit
her. I laugh appreciatively, but my mind isn’t on shoptalk. I can’t work up the energy to talk about some soap opera sad case
that’s hours away from taking up my TV airtime. I need to figure out how I can make time with my own man.

12:05
P.M.
and Chantalliqua’s got my hair looking tight and oh-so-right. I haven’t had this much body and bounce since my great aunt
Bobby-Lynn used a pressing comb and big pink, foam rollers slept in overnight with a scarf, more holy than righteous, tied
around my head to keep me from sweating out the straightness.

I pay Chantalliqua for her time and add a little just to keep her happy. Because everybody knows, if Chantalliqua ain’t happy,
nobody’s happy. The last time she was in a snit, there were more hats and wigs coming out of her shop than you cared to count.
That was known as the Great Wig-Out of Ninety-eight—a dark, dark time in the history of hair.

As I pass her the extra twenty-dollar bill, she grabs my hands and starts to inspect my nails. She clucks her tongue loudly,
shaking her head. At her denouncement of the condition of my nails, you can feel the wind whip through the shop as everyone
moves to hide their own hands from Chantalliqua’s field of vision. She nods her head in the direction of the chair. Oh no!
I know my face is showing my dismay. Not
The Chair!

It’s one thing to be trapped under a hooded hair dryer, trying to maintain conversation when it feels as though your ears
are being seared and every time you try to shift positions, you wind up knocking the goosenecked dryer onto your forehead
with a
thunk.
It’s quite another thing to sit face to face with someone who can’t stop talking while she’s filing your nails down to nubs.
Even with huge box fans blowing, the smell of nail polish is so thick in your nostrils that you want to gag. But you can’t
because if you open your mouth to try to breathe, Chantalliqua will take that as a sign that you’re trying to get a word in
edgewise and will talk faster and longer to get in her point of view. The faster she talks, the slower she files. The slower
she files, the longer you suffocate. No. Anything but
The Chair.

I try to beg off. I’ve got to run. I may not make my lunch date with him, but I’ve got other errands to run. I’ve got other
tasks I need to accomplish before tonight. For you see, tonight I will wait and watch no more.

On second thought, I take another look at my hands. I weigh how they look now against how they’re bound to look later. I imagine
them raking themselves across his broad, bronzed back and give a shudder of disgust. Not because of him! Heaven knows, that
man is way too fine to give a woman a response like that. I tremble because these chipped, cracked ends would splinter before
he could utter his first moans of pleasure.

I sigh. Chantalliqua is right. She always is. Well, almost always. There was that time last summer when she convinced me to
go cherry red. If only I hadn’t let her convince me that that color would be good for my dusky skin tones. I looked like an
inside-out cherry cordial. After a few wisecracks from my friends and what I’m sure was one offhand, chance disapproving glance
from him, you could best believe that my disposition was far from sweet. Just in case, I give Chantalliqua the go-ahead to
set me up for a pedicure, too. Nothing kills the romantic mood faster than when you’re playing footsie with some doggish-looking
feet.

I don’t get out of her shop until 1:45
P.M.,
looking good from head to toe. There’s still a few more stops to make, a few more items to get before I make this the most
memorable night of his life. If only those stops were on the same side of town. Instead, he’s got me so turned around, I’m
driving all over the place. He’d better appreciate all this trouble I’m going through. From the Galleria area, to the Fifth
Ward, back across town to a shop in the Village. My best girl, Jolene, told me that there is a woman who sells one-of-a-kind
perfumes and body oils. Jolene warned me that they were pricey but worth their weight in gold. Her man took a whiff of her
new perfume and couldn’t leave her alone for the rest of the night. Personally, I can’t see how “smell my neck” would be thought
of as a turn-on. But Jolene has always told it to me straight. I have to take her at her word.

I walk into the shop, completely overwhelmed. There are so many scents, my head starts to spin. How can I find the one unique
scent that will drive him wild? If only I’d known that it would be this difficult to choose, I would have asked Jolene to
join me.

As I wander, my eyes (not my nose) are drawn to a shelf lined with plain brown vials covered with black tops. They’re sitting
in long wooden trays. A small, gold numbered sticker is placed in front of each bottle. I’m not sure if the stickers are meant
to count the number of bottles or to identify each unique scent by number. My hand reaches instinctively toward a vial. Number
seven. Lucky number seven. If I’m not lucky, I want to get lucky. I want to
get
him.