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  Gently, I took the tissue from her hand and continued pouring out my soul to her.

  What began as a late lunch ended up becoming an early dinner at City Crab. Perusing the menu with my glasses pulled away from my face to see the fine print, I said, “Oh, the salads look nice. Old women like me have to get all the vegetables we can get.”

  Lee, peeping over the top of her menu, stared at me like my twenty-year-old had a tendency to do when she was fed up with me. “Will you stop it? You’re not old. You’re absolutely gorgeous. Now, I know you aren’t going to come all this way to still eat a salad, Meena.”

  Sitting in a seafood restaurant at the corner of 19th and Park Avenue with a woman who, in all of five hours, knew more about me than my own husband knew, I finally took a chance. “Okay, you’re right. I’ll have the Maryland Crabmeat Stuffed Idaho Rainbow Trout.”

  Slowly rubbing my thigh underneath the table, Lee ordered for both of us and requested the waiter bring us a pitcher of Sangria. I wasn’t a drinker, but I didn’t want her to know that. When the waiter left, she brought her hand back to the tabletop and gestured for me to put my hand in hers. At first I hesitated because I wasn’t comfortable with holding another woman’s hand in public. “Relax, Meena. No one knows us here. Besides, it’s none of anybody’s business what we do.”

  I liked Lee’s attitude. Walter had always been concerned with what other people thought, and it made our outings together very uncomfortable for me. With Lee, I felt like it was right. “Okay, okay,” I said, giving them to her; trembling and all.

  Stroking my knuckles and the veins in my ageless hands, Lee softly asked, looking into my eyes, “You know why I did this for you?”

  I’d been asking myself that for hours, and I was overdue an explanation. “Why, yes, I’d like to know,” I responded, squeezing her soft hands.

  “From the moment I laid eyes on you in that picture, I’ve thought about you. I hear Walter talking about you as if you’re some type of permanent fixture in his life with no opinions, no say in anything. One day, after he and his secretary had finished talking about an event you two had attended, I asked her what you did. She referred to you as Doctor Woodson, and I was floored when she told me how heavy you were. The way he talks about you, I would’ve never guessed that about you. So I googled you and found out about this amazing stuff you’d done.”

  I was speechless. No one had ever talked to me about what my life used to be like. It was always about Walter, Walter, Walter.

  “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.

  The locals had warned her about the heat but she had brushed off their warnings. She’d experienced enough summers in D.C. to feel confident she could handle one in Tucson.

  But D.C. heat was nothing like this.

  In a desperate attempt to feel cooler Monica had smoothed her dreads back into a ponytail. She also wore her union baseball cap to keep the sun off her face.

  “Union! Union!”

  Monica looked over and smiled. Mrs. Juanita Whitecloud, her plump, brown face glistening with sweat, stood near the curb, waving her sign at the passing cars. Her cardinal-red and navy-blue University of Arizona T-shirt was covered with union buttons, as was the large straw hat she wore.

  Most of the cars, their windows rolled up in order to sustain their air-conditioned interiors, zipped past. But one car, its windows down, Spanish-style rap music pulsating out of its mega-speakers, slowed down for the light.

  Monica moved closer to Mrs. Whitecloud.

  The older woman shoved her sign at the car. “Union! Union!”

  The car was full of young men. One of those in the backseat pushed his lean, handsome face out the window.

  “Hey! Abuella! Why don’t you go home and bake some coyotas?”

  “If I do,” Mrs. Whitecould taunted, “will you and your fine-looking hijos come over and eat them?”

  The boy grinned. “I don’t know. You kinda old for me. You got maybe a granddaughter I can hang with.”

  “No grandbabies yet. But I got a daughter.”

  “She fine as you?”

  Mrs. Whitecloud laughed, her full bosom jiggling. “Yeah, but she’s too good for you.”

  Before the boy could respond, the light changed and the car sped off.

  Silas, who worked at the hotel as a custodian, shook his gray-haired head at Mrs. Whitecloud. “You ought to stop pimping Chenoa like that.”

  “I’m not pimping her. It’s true what I said. I got no grandbabies yet. Chenoa’s my only child. If she don’t give me any, how I’m going to get any?” She looked over at Monica. “Ain’t that right?”

  Monica smiled. The last thing she wanted to do was encourage Mrs. Whitecloud in her campaign to get her daughter, Chenoa, married. Especially since from the moment Monica had met Chenoa, she’d been unable to stop thinking about her.

  The union members marched up and down the street, waving their signs and chanting. Monica smiled. From day one she had been fighting an uphill battle to convince the hotel workers they needed a union.

  Mrs. Whitecloud had been her first convert, and she had enthusiastically thrown herself into the fray, helping Monica strategize ways to organize the workers. As a result of spending so much time with her, Monica had met Chenoa, who was home for the summer from grad school back East.

  Even now, standing in the hot, blazing sun, Monica felt that deliciously cool quiver deep down in her belly whenever she thought of Mrs. Whitecloud’s beautiful daughter.

  Chenoa. Of the black licorice hair, the smooth butterscotch skin, the succulent caramel-rich eyes.

  Monica winced. Damn it. She couldn’t help it if she thought about Chenoa in candy-coated images. She wanted to eat the woman alive.

  Carnally speaking, of course.

  “Chenoa!” Mrs. Whitecloud’s voice cut through the chants of the workers. Monica quickly whirled around, bumping into Silas who was walking behind her.

  He took a step back and grinned. “Watch it, girl.”

  “Sorry.”

  He slyly winked. “Keep that up and you might get me wondering if you got a thing for me.”

  Monica vaguely returned his smile. He’d been hitting on her since day one.

  She looked over to where Mrs. Whitecloud stood next to Chenoa. What was she doing here? Chenoa had made it quite clear what she thought of her mother’s union activities.

  She did not approve of them.

  From where Monica stood it looked as if that was the subject of their conversation, for Mrs. Whitecloud was stubbornly shaking her head. Chenoa’s lovely face was set in an equally obstinate frown.

  Monica went over to them. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, Monica,” Mrs. Whitecloud said. “There’s nothing wrong.”

  Chenoa crossed her arms underneath her breasts. Monica couldn’t help noticing how firm and enticing they looked under Chenoa’s butter-yellow cotton T-shirt. She wore jean shorts that hugged her deliciously round ass and from which her long, bare legs extended enticingly.

  “No, Mother. There most certainly is something wrong.”

  “Chenoa, don’t…”

  Chenoa ignored her and looked over at Monica. “Do you have any idea what the temperature is?”

  Monica opened her mouth but Chenoa beat her to the punch. “A hundred ten degrees. A hundred ten! And you’ve got my mother out here…”

  Mrs. Whitecloud moved in front of Monica and planted herself squarely in front of her daughter. “No, Chenoa. That is not fair. Monica does not control the weather.”

  “But apparently she controls you,” Chenoa retorted.

  “No! No one controls me! I am here because I believe in the union.” She pointed to one of the bouquets of buttons on her shirt. “What does that say?”

  Chenoa looked at the button and frowned. “Bread and roses. So?”

  “And do you know what that means?

  Chenoa shook her head.

  Mrs. Whitecloud smiled and turned to the other marchers who had stopped to watch the row.

  “She got one degree and is getting another, but she don’t know everything.” She looked over at Monica. “Tell Miss Smarty-Pants what it means.”

  Monica looked over into Chenoa’s large, dark eyes and that delicious shiver had moved even lower, fluttering like the tips of fingers over her soft, inner folds.

  Then, realizing with a start she’d been staring into Chenoa’s eyes a hairsbreadth longer than was probably appropriate, Monica quickly looked away and at her watch. It was near the end of the time they’d been given permission to stage their protest.

  Monica waved her arms. “It’s almost time for us to go. Make sure you pack up any garbage.”

  Mrs. Whitecloud touched Monica’s arm. “Ain’t you going to tell her what ‘bread and roses’ mean?”

  “Sure. But she’s right; we need to get you out of this heat.”

  Mrs. Whitecloud snorted. “Such a fuss.”

  But she joined the others who were loading their union signs into Silas’ van.

  Monica looked at Chenoa. “We’re going to stop and have a beer.” She swallowed and forced herself to go on. “Want to join us?”

  Mrs. Whitecloud shouted from within the van. “Yes, she can join us. Or maybe she’s gotten too fancy to drink beer.”

  A corner of Chenoa’s lush mouth curled up. “No, Mother. I’ll never get that fancy.” She glanced at Monica. “You buying?”

 
; “Sure.”

  Chenoa shrugged her slender shoulders. “Then I’m in.”

  After the bright, blistering heat, the dark, air-conditioned bar enveloped Monica like a refreshing dip into an icy pool. The union members surged around her, washing up against the bar like waves against rocks. Waving their arms, they shouted for soda, water, beers or wine coolers. The bartender, a twenty-something white boy with spiked blond hair, rushed to fill their orders.

  Chenoa, her hand firmly on her mother’s arm, led her to an empty table near the bar. Torn between her desire to stay as close to Chenoa as possible, yet her wish not to appear so obvious, Monica hesitated.

  Mrs. Whitecloud waved her over. “Come and sit with us.”

  Monica went over to the table. There were three chairs. Monica sat in the one next to Mrs. Whitecloud. Chenoa was still standing.

  “So, what do you want, Mother?”

  “A beer,” Mrs. Whitecloud promptly responded.

  Chenoa rolled her eyes. “I’ll bring you water first. You need to get some fluid in your body. Beer will only dehydrate you.”

  She went over to the bar. Monica congratulated herself for resisting the urge to watch Chenoa walk away.

  Mrs. Whitecloud waited until her daughter was out of earshot. “You would think that I am the child and that she is the mother.”

  Monica smiled. “She’s very caring. You’re lucky to have her.”

  “Caring.” Mrs. Whitecloud huffed. “More like Miss Busy-Body, Know-It-All.” Then she sighed. “But you are right. She is a good daughter. It has only been me and her since her father died.”

  A wistful look fell over Mrs. Whitecloud’s face. “It is from him Chenoa gets her looks. My family did not want me to marry him. Because he was an Indian.” Mrs. Whitecloud snorted. “As if we were descended unmixed from the Spanish hildagos or something. But I did not care. I loved him. I loved him so much it hurt.”

  Mrs. Whitecloud looked keenly over at Monica. “You ever love anybody that much?”

  Monica was about to answer but Chenoa had returned. She had a glass full of ice, a bottle of water and two beers. She slid one beer in front of Monica as she sat down.