Copyright © 1998
Part One
"Dark brown girls in blond men's arms"
Cleanthe swayed with the motion of the train, back and forth, back and forth. The rocking motion was mesmerizing, along with the endless clack-clack-clack of the metal wheels on the tracks. The heat in the car was stifling, between the excessive steam and the crush of too many bodies swathed in fur and fleece and thinsulate.
With a sudden jerk the train lost all speed and then slid to a halt, its rusted brakes squealing in protest. Cleanthe reflexively tightened her grip on the metal bar over her head and held on for dear life, releasing her hold only after the train had stopped. For a moment chaos ruled in the subway car -- the lights flickered off, then on; passengers extricated themselves and their parcels from the laps of their neighbors. Then all was quiet, the motionless attentive silence of hundreds of people awaiting an explanation for this latest inconvenience.
After thirty seconds or so the PA system crackled into life. "Attention, Passengers -- we apologize for the delay, and we hope to be moving again shortly--" The grumbling began almost immediately. "What the hell does THAT mean?" "Damn trains, always makin' me late for work!" In the seat in front of Cleanthe, a middle-aged black woman elbowed the passenger sitting next to her, a solid-looking black man in a well-worn watch cap. "Won't never see this happen on them white folks' trains," she said. "Think they do this on fancy commuter trains? Metro-North? L-I-Double R?" Her companion grinned, yellowed teeth flashing in a bright grin beneath a scraggly dark moustache. "'Tis so," he rumbled, his voice tinged with Trinidad and Tobago. "Don' take dem suburb trains much, though. Not lately, anyways." The woman beside him cackled loudly. "Uh-HUNH" she grunted, as much to herself as to anybody else.
Cleanthe said nothing, her gaze fixed on the blackness that showed through the window of the subway car. In the scratched glass surface of the window pane she could just make out her own reflection, smiling in that enigmatic way that always drove Momma crazy. "What you smilin' bout there, Girl? I swear, sometimes you make me wanna look for canary feathers inside that mouth..." In the window, her smile deepened. What you think now, Momma? What you think now that your little girl all grown up and made something of herself? Columbia University, Momma!
Cleanthe felt the warm rush of pride she always felt when she thought that way. Damn straight, she thought, Columbia University. I made it through my neighborhood, through high school, getting nothing from nobody, all on my own. I'm the one takes a bus and two trains every day, two hours fifteen minutes on the bus and the D-train and the 1-train till I get to campus. I'm the one doing all my studying and holding down my job at University Food Market four nights a week. I'm the one with a good GPA in Business and History and English Lit...
Today's my Lit class, she thought. Doctor Johnson today. Cleanthe suddenly felt hot and flushed, and saw her reflection's eyes widen and her grin fade. Inside, she felt her blooming pride shrink and dwindle, contracting in her center. She felt herself awash in a flood of guilt and shame mixed with deeper stirrings. She closed her eyes, grinding her eyelids together. Bad decision, she thought, as she felt her sense of balance slipping away. When she opened her eyes again she saw concern in the face of the West Indian man seated before her. "You OK there, Miss?" he asked, rising slightly in his seat. Cleanthe tried to smile and shake her head No, I don't need to sit, but before she could speak the train jerked to a start, its grinding efforts drowning her out. She gave the man a reassuring look and straightened up, and remembered.
>From the first moment she'd entered the room in Hamilton Hall, the class had been a revelation. There in that classroom were more black faces than she'd ever seen together anywhere on campus. The others felt it too, she could tell. They were relaxed, at ease, smiling broader and talking louder than black Columbia students usually did. This was *their* class, they said, without actually having to say so. African-American Literature was *their* class. Their eyes were alight with that knowledge, eager faces fierce as a pride of young lions. And then the time arrived and the door swung open one last time as the Professor entered.
Conversation halted. Every eye in the room was riveted to the figure at the front of the classroom as he casually dropped his overstuffed carry-case on the desk. From the shocked expressions of her classmates Cleanthe could tell that they were all thinking the same thing: who was this white man? A number of the students were peering at him with suspicion, others with open hostility. This could *not* be Professor Lewis Johnson, not in this room, not in this class. No way this white man was going to step right into their space and violate their world.
A minute passed, and then another. The man, whoever he was, was calm and impassive as his gaze swept across the room. Cleanthe couldn't entirely repress a smile. He sure had balls, this white man. And *so* white, too! His shock of blonde hair and absurdly pale skin were nearly blinding among the brown-and-black hues that filled the room. An icy chill passed through her as she realized that he was looking directly at her. No, it was as if those piercing green eyes were peering through her, inside her, seeing deep into her thoughts. A hot flush rushed to her cheeks as she looked directly into those eyes. Can he tell? she wondered. They say white folks think we can't blush, she thought. I hope he can't tell. He can! said a tiny voice in her head. Hush up! she shouted back. Cleanthe thought his eyes were crinkling in the corners, like he wanted to smile but wouldn't. He opened his mouth, and spoke.
"I've known rivers," he said.
"I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers."
He spoke softly but urgently, in a voice that commanded attention. His words unfurled, encompassing the Euphrates and the Congo and the Nile. With his words the Mississippi rose up before him, a deep muddy vision Cleanthe had never before seen.
"I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers."
Cleanthe was his. The whole class was his. His voice and his words had penetrated their shields, gotten behind their masks. For a moment they were all naked before him, defenseless and vulnerable. It was over before it even started, but it had been there. They all knew it. He knew it too. "That'll do," he murmured. And he reached back into his bag and grabbed a sheaf of course outlines, and class began.
Afterwards Cleanthe hung back, waiting for everyone to clear out. As the last students filed through the doorway she approached the desk where the teacher was randomly stuffing stray sheets of paper into his bag. As she drew near he raised his gaze and smiled at her.
"I knew you would come," he said.
Cleanthe knew she was about to blush again. "Um, I..." she stammered. "I just..."
His smile deepened. "Langston Hughes," he said. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers. Amazing, isn't it?" Cleanthe nodded, blushing, dumbstruck. "I've always been overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all," he continued. "I'm glad you felt the same way, Miss...?" His voice trailed off in a question mark. Cleanthe saw that he'd extended his hand to her as well.
"Jones," she whispered in a hoarse voice. She swallowed. "Cleanthe Jones." She shifted her book bag and moved to shake his hand. He took her hand in his. It was a soft grip. Almost caressing. "Cleanthe Jones," he repeated, his eyes glued to her face as he seemed to connect the name to the person in his mind. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Cleanthe." He'd pronounced her name right, first try. Nobody ever did. Her eyes were locked to his, trapped in that same penetrating gaze. He didn't immediately release her hand. She didn't want him to. Finally, he let go. The spell broke and he smiled again, and wished her a good day. She drifted out of the room and looked at her watch. She was ten minutes late to Chemistry.
A jerk and a squeak, and a crackly voice. "D train to the Bronx. Please watch the closing doors." Cleanthe shook her head clear of the cobwebs and looked out of the window at the platform. 125th Street? Shit! Ruthlessly she banged several people aside with her book bag and scrambled through the metal doors just as they began to close. *Bing-Bong* rang the door-chime as she wedged through the narrowing opening. *Bing-Bong*. *BING BONG*! The doors stuttered twice and then let her through, spitting her out into the station. They shut with a satisfied *click* behind her, and she watched mutely as the train rumbled to a start and sped up as it pulled away.
Cleanthe shook her head again and slapped it once with her palm. Shit! Daydreaming again, and now she had to walk all the way back to Broadway from St. Nicholas and then over another nine blocks, and she was late already. Her reverie was snapped, her bag felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, and she'd be late to Dr. Johnson's class if she ever made it there at all. Funny how she still thought of him as "Doctor Johnson," even after everything.
Cleanthe emerged from the steps onto St. Nicholas and turned east on 125th toward Broadway. Down the edge of Harlem, along the border she walked. Well, she thought, that's what happens when you get out at the "wrong" subway station. At freshman orientation that's what they called it. The "wrong" station. Don't never get off at 125th Street, students. Stay far 'way from that badass neighborhood yonder. Gotta watch out for them natives, 'cause they're dangerous in those parts. As she passed the faded remains of old nightspots and boarded-up windows, Cleanthe wondered when they'd started to use that euphemism. "Wrong," they'd said. As good a code-word as any other, she guessed.
As she neared Broadway Cleanthe looked further down 125th Street toward the river. Squinting in the sunlight she could see, past the shiny red-and-yellow McDonald's at the corner, more shuttered buildings and dilapidated structures. She could see a long skinny sign attached to one pale ruin; she read the letters, starting from the top and going down. "C O T T O N C L U--" The Cotton Club, she thought. Back when white folks used to come uptown in droves for some "local color." What was it Dr. Johnson said about the Harlem Renaissance? "When Harlem was in vogue"? Cleanthe smiled as she turned left onto Broadway, under the 1-train tracks. Bet the 125th Street Station wasn't so "wrong" in those days.
After only the second Black Lit class she'd already known how much it would mean to her. How much he would mean to her. She had come to Columbia to learn, but she hadn't known what and she hadn't known how. Dr. Lewis Johnson had the answers to questions she didn't even know how to ask.
Their conferences had started out as office-hour appointments to go over class assignments and readings. But in no time their ten-minute meetings were stretching into fifteen minutes, forty-five minutes, an hour. Their discussions expanded far beyond the limited scope of the classroom. Dr. Johnson lent her books: Langston Hughes at first, her consuming passion. Then he introduced her to Zora Neale Hurston and "Their Eyes Were Watching God." She'd read Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison before, but James Weldon Johnson and Claude Brown and Nikki Giovanni had been unfamiliar names to her. She eagerly devoured them all. She hung on her teacher's every word. Worlds were opening up to Cleanthe, and his words were her keys.
It was only natural that these conversations soon moved out of Dr. Johnson's cramped office. At first she'd only accompanied him directly from his office to his next class. Soon they arranged to meet in the Student Union, over soda. They began to have regular lunches, at local restaurants or in the food court. They weren't dates, exactly. But Cleanthe started to dress up nicer on lunch days.
Momma noticed, and Devon too. "Cle's got a boy-frien'," he taunted. Momma thought so too. But Cleanthe denied it till she was blue in the face. "I'm just meeting Dr. Johnson today, is all," she'd say. "We're doing Richard Wright and I need some extra help." Momma seemed all right with that, she really did. But lately she'd been acting funny. "You sure do talk a whole lot 'bout that Dr. Johnson," she'd said that very morning. "You sure he's not intr'sted in nothin' 'sides your mind, Cleanthe?" "Momma!" Cleanthe yelled, scandalized.
Her mother chuckled, and kissed the top of her head. Then she did something totally unlike her. She sat down on a chair facing Cleanthe and looked right into her eyes, not saying a word. Then she spoke in a hushed voice. "You be careful, Daughter. You hear me? You be real careful that you look at this man with your eyes wide open." Cleanthe stared at her, and nodded slowly. "I will, Momma. But I'm learning so much! I can't stop now, not with so much more left to learn! And besides," she continued, "he's not like that at all. He's nothing like any of them boys I been with." Cleanthe barely had time to notice the strange look that passed across her mother's face. She was late, and she had to get to class.
Cleanthe stopped mid-stride. She blinked, twice, and looked up at the black wrought-iron gates that led into the Columbia campus. "Lucky for me I don't need my brain to find my way," she muttered. Almost running now, she hustled across College Walk, dragging her weighty bag behind her. "Please let me make it, please..." she prayed inside her head. But as she reached the entrance to Hamilton she heard the first booming clangs of the big bell outside. Her stomach sank, and all the way up the elevator to the sixth floor Cleanthe berated herself. "Stupid for waking up late, stupid for daydreaming, stupid, stupid, stupid..."
By the time she got to class there was nobody left. When she saw the scribbles on the blackboard Cleanthe felt the onset of despair and desperation. Oh, no! Exam? On what? When? Had she missed a test? The panic swept over her like a physical force. Firmly, she stifled it. What's today? she asked herself. Tuesday, she answered. Fine. Dr. Johnson always heads for his office after Tuesday's class, even though he doesn't schedule appointments. He's there now. Get a grip, girl! Cleanthe reshouldered her bag, breathed in through her nose, and headed back to the elevator.
Back down to the third floor she went. When the doors opened Cleanthe sprang out, practically bowling over an elderly secretary in the process. Shooting apologies over her shoulder she took off for Dr. Johnson's office door and grabbed the handle. It wouldn't turn. And behind the opaque glass, she could tell that the lights were off. Cleanthe stood there, frozen, almost in tears. What would she do? She couldn't fail, she wouldn't. She couldn't fail him. She closed her eyes and lowered her head, and then felt a soft hand on her shoulder.
"Cleanthe," breathed a soft voice. He hadn't gone after all. Her relief at his presence was overwhelming, and without thinking about it Cleanthe sank back to lean against the man behind her. Chuckling, he pulled away and pressed one palm flat against her back to separate them. "Sorry, Cleanthe," he said. "You'll have to stay away for just another minute. Unless you want to get coffee all over your back, that is." He laughed again as Cleanthe gingerly tried to shuffle out of his way. "Here -- come on in," he said, unlocking the door and holding it open with his free hand.
Cleanthe moved to enter the office, but in his effort to hold the door open Dr. Johnson had wedged himself into the doorway. Cleanthe turned sideways to squeeze through, but only succeeded in pressing herself up against her teacher. For a long moment reality froze. Cleanthe felt a burning at every single point along her front where their bodies touched. The peaks of her breasts were on fire where they flattened against his torso. Her belly sizzled at the point of contact with his silver belt buckle. The inside of her right thigh crackled with electricity where she felt the pressure of his leg. They stood there unmoving for an instant and forever, their eyes locked together. Cleanthe could hear his breathing, and hers, grow ragged. And then his head moved closer and her lips parted, and after a split-second of hesitation their mouths came together in a deep kiss.
Cleanthe moaned from the depths of her body and soul into his mouth as the kiss grew deeper and more passionate. Through a thick haze she felt him maneuver her body inside the office. If she could trust her ears she would have heard the door swing shut and the soft click as he turned the lock behind him. But all her senses were filled with him, with his smell and his breathing and the rough texture of his wool jacket beneath her fingertips. Cleanthe cried out softly as he devoured her, his mouth swallowing her and his hands engulfing her back, her shoulders, her waist. As he deliberately walked her backwards deeper into his office Cleanthe submerged herself in him, breathing him in her nostrils and tasting his tongue and teeth and lips. She felt something hard jut into her lower back, the edge of his desk. Without resisting, her arms still clasped around him, Cleanthe let him lift her up until she sat perched on its surface, her legs dangling over the side.
He undressed her like she was a child, pushing her open jacket back off her shoulders, then peeling her turtleneck up and over her head. He ran his hands over her body, now revealed: her naked shoulders, her bare back, the tiny pinches and folds of dark flesh at the edges of the startlingly white brassiere straps. Cleanthe arched her back at his touch and straightened atop the desk. With her head back and her eyes closed she let sensuality wash over her, and she gasped as she felt his expert fingers loosen the bra clasps at the center of her back.
Her breath caught as she felt the easing tension of the elastic that had bound her. She shivered at the brush of the garment against her forearms as it floated off her body. She heard a low rumble from the man who had exposed her, and then felt the touch of something soft, delicate, and wet. Cleanthe was utterly transported. She leaned back on her arms and savored the feel of a man's tongue as it traced the curvature of each breast. Other lovers had attacked her chest with their mouths and teeth out of hunger and their own deep need. Those had been teenage boys, too overcome with their tit-fantasies to impart much pleasure to her. But Doctor Johnson was a man, she thought, a man who knew how to give pleasure to a woman.
And right now, for the first time in her life, Cleanthe felt like a woman being pleasured by a man.
Cleanthe moaned loudly as she felt suction at her nipple, and nearly shrieked at the jolt of electricity that hit her when he lightly nibbled it with the edge of his teeth. She peeked down through heavy lashes at the blonde head at her bosom, at the contrast between his light and her dark, his pink lips and white teeth and the dark brown summits of her peaks. She reached out and ran her spread fingers through that yellow mane, pulling him to her and pushing herself deeper into his magical mouth. Suck me, she thought. Eat me, gobble me up. She smiled with bliss and pleasure and passion, and gasped again at his oral worship of her.
Dr. Johnson hooked two fingers into the spandex waistband of her tights and pulled experimentally. Cleanthe pushed back on her arms and levered her buttocks off the desk surface, pushing her pelvis upwards toward him, in offering. With a smooth tug he pulled at the material and Cleanthe's tights and underwear and socks all fell off in a heap. Cleanthe sat back on Dr. Johnson's desk, passive, naked, afraid and aroused. She stared in wonder as her mentor sank to his knees before her.
Her skin prickled and tingled as Cleanthe felt the firm touch of Dr. Johnson's hands traveling over her foot and up her legs. Her breath quickened and then nearly stopped when he reached her knees and softly pushed them apart. With a gasp that was a sob she yielded to his touch and lay back on the desk, her arms propping her up. What was he thinking, down there between her legs? His fingers moved up her inner thighs, nearing the juncture of her legs.
Cleanthe felt her panic rising. She remembered when she'd gone for her first pelvic exam, and the Doctor had first shown her what she looked like down there, in a mirror. It was so hairy, so ugly and messy. And when he'd spread the dark flappy folds apart and shown her the inside she had seen the bright pink flesh and thought Oh It looks like a slice, a gaping open wound in the middle of me. And the boys, with their snaps about the hair and the smell and the wet, they wouldn't even barely touch it at all. They'd just stick their things in and push push push until they were through.
Cleanthe squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to tremble as her teacher's fingers found her pubic hair and traced the hidden opening to her sex. He doesn't seem too disgusted, she thought hopefully. She cringed at the wet smack and the strong fragrance that issued from her as he spread her open with his fingers. Oh no, she thought. Oh no...
Nothing.
No recoil, no comments, not even a change in his breathing. And then Cleanthe jerked in amazement as she felt something warm and wet and flexible slithering up the inner edges of her pussy lips. Was that his mouth? she wondered in awe. Cleanthe had heard that there were men who would do that to a woman, but she'd never really --
A cry of pure intense pleasure burst forth from Cleanthe as she felt his tongue dip unexpectedly inside her. And then he moved up higher, higher until the probing pointy tip was at the top and burrowing in. Cleanthe nearly screamed as she felt him touch her tiny button, something no one else had ever done to her before. He tongued it and licked it and kissed it, his lips and tongue working and sucking her clitty, slowly at first and then more urgently.
The pleasure was too much to bear; the ecstasy too much to take. Cleanthe's arms lacked the strength to prop her up any more so she lay down flat on her back, scattering a pile of term papers in the process. As she sank back he lifted her legs until they were supported on his shoulders, and then attacked her even more fiercely with his mouth. Cleanthe began to groan, and then scream. Every fibre of her body throbbed with the rhythm of his mouth and the waves of incredible pleasure that emanated from her sex.
As she thrashed about on the desk and thrust her hips so he could go deeper harder faster Cleanthe thought of her wound, and how he was loving it and kissing it. No, she realized, It's not a wound anymore, he's healed it, and then it was too late to think at all. For a moment everything seemed to stop and then suddenly undiluted pleasure filled every pore, every crevice in Cleanthe and it went on and on and on and then began to ebb.
Cleanthe could feel the cool sheen of sweat all over her body and the trembling of her muscles as the orgasm petered out. Her throat was raw, and she could feel trails of quicksilver down her cheeks where tears had run. Dr. Johnson was standing now, looking down at her with tenderness and concern. She could feel new tears welling up and her heart expanding and ballooning, her love for him at that moment coursing through her entire bloodstream. At the bottom of her vision she saw a movement, and then his pants had fallen and his pale manhood was pointing toward her in yearning. "Yes," she said, and again "yes," and she felt him push into her.
It didn't take very long. It was as if he were on the verge of release already before he was even inside her. So liquid were her insides that she barely felt him thrust into her once or twice before his body shuddered violently and he collapsed onto her on the desk, spent. "There, there," she murmured, "mmm, mmm," as her fingers toyed with the ends of his hair. They lay there a while, and she listened to his breathing as he rested his head on her breast. He was heavy atop her, and Cleanthe could feel an uncomfortable tightness across her back from her awkward positioning, and her pussy was all sticky and dripping with saliva and her juices and his cum. But Doctor Johnson had made love to her, and he had devoured her, and she was blissful in his office, in his arms.
Later, when they had recovered and Cleanthe was getting dressed, he tried to speak. "Cleanthe..." he began, but she hushed him, putting a soft fingertip across his lips. "That's the first time I ever really made love in my whole life," she said. "So don't you go mess it up with talk right now." Her teacher nodded, slowly. Cleanthe rose onto her toes and kissed him softly on the cheek. "Thank you," she whispered. As she unlocked the office door and pulled it open, Cleanthe spoke in a louder voice. "Thank you for everything, Dr. Johnson," she said. "I learned a lot."
She walked down the hall and stepped into the elevator. As the doors slid shut Cleanthe smacked herself on the head with her palm. Damn, she thought. I never did find out about that test!
Part Two
"That little spark is love, Dying in the dark"
"Young Negro Girl," he said.
Cleanthe didn't even look up from the bottom of the bed where she lay all curled up, brushing his big toenail with a stubby grey pillow feather she'd found on the bed. "Thass me," she responded, and giggled.
Even though she wasn't looking at his face, Cleanthe knew he was frowning at her. She could almost hear his eyebrows drawing together. "I meant the poem," he said. Cleanthe puckered up her lips nice and fat and made kissy noises at him.
They lay naked on the big queen-size bed. It was late June, and late June on the Upper West Side sometimes felt like August, and they had just made love. So they were naked. So much naked usually made Cleanthe frisky after a while. But she wasn't frisky yet, just mellow, and mellow was good for poetry listening. "Don' get mad, bwana, I sorry. G'wan, read it. Read the poem, Lewis Lover."
Five weeks of living together had taught Cleanthe how to judge her man's moods and what to say to mollify him. Besides, it was hard to stay grumpy during afterglow, especially when someone was tickling your toes with a pillow feather. His expression softened, and he started to read.
"You are like a warm dark dusk In the middle of June-time."
Five weeks now they'd been together in his apartment in Manhattan, since the term had ended in May. For the two months before that they had played a dangerous game, carrying on a secret affair on campus. After that first time in March they'd tried to cool it, to treat it like a one-time thing. In class he was cordial, but very professional. She assumed the air of a bored and disinterested student who was only worried about her grade-point. They lasted a week.
The next Tuesday after class Cleanthe showed up at his office on some pretense of discussing a writing assignment on Countee Cullen. As soon as the door shut behind her they attacked each other without a word. On Tuesday after Tuesday they would meet in his office and fuck, screwing the afternoons away until it was time for her to go to work and for him to teach his evening class.
"When the first violets Have almost forgotten their names"
Their weekly tryst made for a good arrangement. Because it was so limited, Cleanthe found that she wasn't messing up in all her other classes. This was different from her usual pattern, because a new boyfriend generally left her no time or energy or brain cells for her schoolwork. She also liked the way once-a-week kept the sex fresh, so it never got boring.
Like the week after Spring Break, when it had been two Tuesdays since they'd seen each other. Cleanthe strolled into the office in Hamilton Hall ten minutes later than usual, just for fun. "Hi, Dr. Johnson," she said casually. "I hope you had a good break. I sure did. I went dancing almost every night, rubbin' up against my friends at the clubs..."
As she spoke Cleanthe moved sinuously, rolling her hips and winding her ass as she looked at him sidewise out of the corners of her eyes. He could only take so much, and after about ten seconds he grabbed her and kissed her violently on the mouth. Then he spun her around, pulled up her skirt, and yanked down her panties with a growl. As Cleanthe bent low over his desk he rammed into her from behind, taking her with a force he'd never shown before. Cleanthe was as excited as he, and for days afterwards she tingled at the memory of their ferocious animallike fucking and their howling climaxes.
"And the deep red roses bloom."
Cleanthe did feel like she was blooming. As the term ended she thought maybe their affair would too, and she promised herself she would be strong. But at the Final he asked her to meet him in his office afterwards, and instead of the farewell fuck she expected he asked her to come live with him. She had been ecstatic and fairly leapt at him, and so they had the fuck anyway but without the farewell.
The weeks they'd spent together since then had been the most amazing time of her life. After Finals ended there were no tests to study for, no papers to write, and no work, either: University Food Market didn't need her once school was out. Cleanthe didn't even miss the money, 'cause in her life with with Lewis there were no food bills or rent to worry about. Well, maybe there was rent. But not the kind that you paid in cash.
"You are like a warm dark dusk In the middle of June-time Before the hot nights of summer Burn white with stars."
Cleanthe rested her fingertips on his ankle. For a long moment she closed her eyes and opened her senses to everything around her: the heat of the apartment, a faint breeze stirring under the slow circling of ceiling-fan blades; the low hum of life outside the apartment window, traffic and neighbors and people down below on the sidewalk; his downy leg hairs tickling the tips of her fingers.
It was perfect, just as the past weeks had been perfect. Neither of them had any pressing responsibilities. They could do as they pleased, and frequently they did. They read innumerable books, together and separately. They talked endlessly, about writers and styles and messages. And they made love, over and over in a myriad of ways. They tried everything, and after that they tried it again.
Cleanthe was as happy as she could remember.
"Read another," she said. "Read your favorite." He made an indesciperable noise, and Cleanthe realized he might've been falling asleep. "Read another," she repeated. "Humph," he grunted, stirring. "Let's see... Here we go. This one has always been the most evocative for me." He held the book up, and began to read.
"Have you dug the spill Of Sugar Hill?"
Cleanthe was mildly surprised. She'd expected "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." That one was special to her, although that might just have been because of where it had brought her. If that poem had never been written, she might not be in this bed today.
It was that voice that had done it, she decided. Even now, so soon after a lovemaking session, it still turned her on. She slowly unwound from her curled-up position and ran her hands up his outstretched legs, starting at the ankles.
"Cast your -- hey! What're you --"
"Shhh," she murmured. "Don't interrupt. Just keep reading, Lover."
"Er-hmm," he cleared his throat, and then his eyes popped wide as her hands reached his crotch. He distractedly flipped the pages of the poetry book he held, and started over.
"Have you dug the spill Of Sugar Hill? Cast your gims On this sepia thrill: Brown sugar lassie, Caramel treat, Honey-gold baby Sweet enough to eat."
So far so good, thought Cleanthe. That just about suits me. She closed her hand around the base of Lewis' cock and was rewarded with a throbbing thickening as it responded to her touch. Cleanthe decided to add a little more incentive.
"Peach-skinned girlie, Coffee and cream, Chocolate darling Out of a drea--Ummmmm..."
Obviously the sucking was getting to him, Cleanthe thought as she continued to move her mouth up and down Lewis' now-erect organ. She sucked a little harder, and then added her squeezing hand to the base for good measure. Hand and mouth, nice and tight, she thought. He was sure to like this.
"Ummm... Yeah, baby... Where was I...
Walnut tinted Or cocoa brown, Pomegranate lipped Pride of the town. Rich cream colored To plum-tinted black, Feminine sweetness In Harlem's no lack... Oooo..."
Cleanthe started to pump a bit faster with her hand and mouth, and moved her other hand beneath to gently cup his balls.
"Aaahh...
Glow of the -- ummm -- quince To blush of the rose. Persimmon bronze To cinnamon toes. Blackberry cordial, Viginia Dare wine -- All those sweet colors Flavor Harlem of mine!
Oh, yes... Oh, baby, that's so incredible..."
Cleanthe flicked her tongue over the tip and underneath his ridge, circling it with the broad edge of her tongue. Then she inhaled him as fully as she could and, with her other palm, squeezed his balls tighter and tighter. He gasped, and she wondered if he'd even make it to the end of the poem.
"Wal -- Ah! -- Walnut or cocoa Let me repeat: Caramel, brown sugar, A chocolate treat."
He was speeding up, trying to finish the words before he exploded. Cleanthe intensified her pumping and sucking and squeezing, going all out.
"Molasses taffy, Coffee and -- oh, yes! -- cream, Licorice, clove, cinnamon To a honey-brown dream. Ginger, wine-gold, Per -- AH! -- simmon, black -- Oh, yes, oh, yes -- Hah-huh-huh-UNGH--"
Cleanthe could feel his penis jerking in her mouth and his leg muscles clenching as he started to cum, and she pulled her mouth back until only the tip of his cock was still inside. As his stuff shot out she sucked harder, her lips milking him, drawing his juice out of him and into her mouth. He yelped and his whole body shuddered, the poem all but forgotten. As the storm passed he quieted, and Cleanthe raised her face away from his slick wet cock and wiped her mouth surreptitiously on the coverlet. It wasn't that she hated the taste, exactly, but she wasn't about to swallow all that every single time, either.
Smiling, Cleanthe reached up and snared the book out of his limp fingers, and found the place. In a husky voice, she read:
"Ginger, wine-gold, Persimmon, blackberry, All through the spectrum Harlem girls vary -- So if you want to know beauty's Rainbow-sweet thrill, Stroll down luscious, Delicious, FINE Sugar Hill."
Cleanthe frowned, and read the poem again from the beginning -- she hadn't been paying much attention earlier. As she wrapped her eyes and mouth around the rich, luscious images she had to admit that it was a very evocative piece. She also liked the way it found so many different ways to describe the beauty of a black woman, whatever the shade of her skin. But something about it bothered her. Maybe it was the title, "Harlem Sweeties." Or maybe it had something to do with Lewis, and why he liked it. "Lewis?" she said. A snore was the only response. He was asleep. That had been happening more and more often lately.
Cleanthe swung her legs off the bed and got up. All of a sudden she felt grimy and unclean. Her breasts were clammy and pendulous, her body thick and slow. As she stood there looking down at her lover something strange swept over her, a feeling of disconnectedness, of not belonging. She looked around the apartment, his apartment. A vague disquiet took hold of her, but she couldn't quite identify its source. Perhaps a shower would help.
She stood in the tiled shower and let the water course over her. Maybe some of the magic is just wearing off, she thought. Maybe it just gets dull after a while. But that wasn't quite right. She still felt as passionate as she had before the summer, maybe more. Then again, she wasn't the one snoring.
Cleanthe shut her eyes tight and raised her face into the shower spray, enjoying the stinging sensations. Was he bored with her already? How could that be? He seemed so interested in her, in sharing his books and his ideas and his knowledge with her. He shared so many interests with her and they communicated on such a high level; how could this be anything less than satisfying?
Cleanthe had no easy answers but she was waterlogged, so she shut off the water and climbed out of the shower. She grabbed a towel and commenced drying herself, but she was still distracted. Lewis did seem more distant lately, she admitted. The sex was the biggest proof. After they'd moved in together and she got comfortable Cleanthe had become more aggressive in bed, sometimes more demanding. He didn't seem to react well to that: once or twice he'd gotten all pouty, and he did seem to be falling asleep afterwards a lot quicker than before. They were arguing, too. Cleanthe had spoken her mind once or twice about some black writers who she felt were too timid or not daring enough in their writing. Lewis had been uncharacteristically angry and almost insulting to her in response, leaving her baffled and frustrated.
Cleanthe propped one foot up on the toilet and rubbed the towel over her inner thigh and pubis. I need to talk to someone about this, she thought. I need to go out and see somebody besides Lewis and talk this out. Maybe Momma...? No, she wouldn't even think of talking to me right now. I know, she thought, as she hung her towel on the door-hook. I'll go see Cherise.
She dressed quickly without even trying not to wake him; Cleanthe knew that he wouldn't move a muscle unless a bomb went off in the next-door apartment, and maybe not even then. As she left his building with the spare set of keys dangling from her hand, Cleanthe felt strangely free and alive. Why do I feel this way, she thought guiltily. It's not like I haven't... Well, actually it was. She really hadn't been out alone in at least a month. Cleanthe mused about that as she made her way down Broadway to UFM.
Cleanthe went in through the automatic door and basked in the cool air conditioning for a moment. She looked around for a minute, and made her way over to the checkout lines. Sure enough, there was Cherise, chattering away with each customer like there was nothing at all on her mind. In the meantime her hands were dark blurs, running barcodes past the scanners, counting money, packing bags. On her best night Cleanthe had never been able to keep up with Cherise, not in her work or with her mouth. Cleanthe moved closer to Cherise's register and waved. Cherise looked up for an instant and then pointedly turned back to her work without acknowledgement.
Cleanthe was stunned. What the hell was this all about? She moved closer to the register, but Cherise refused to look at her. Cleanthe felt a quick flash of anger -- who does that bitch think she is? -- but stifled it, and made her way around to the cashier's side of the line. Without comment she moved closer until she stood at the end of Cherise's lane. When Cherise still said nothing, Cleanthe bit back the urge to snap at her and instead began to bag the groceries as Cherise passed them through the scanner.
After they'd rung up three or four customers there was nobody left on line, so Cherise turned to look at her. "So," she said in a challenging tone. "You back, huh?" Cleanthe looked at her, letting her hurt show in her face. "Hi, Cherise." Cherise's eyes softened, but didn't yet turn completely friendly. "Six weeks and thass all you got to say for yourself? 'Hi Cherise'? Well?" Cleanthe looked down at the rack of plastic bags. "Look -- 'Reese -- Can we talk somewhere? Could we get lunch or something? I really want to talk to you. Please." Cleanthe raised her eyes and saw Cherise's stony stare. "Please," she repeated. Cherise looked hard at her a moment, and then broke into a grin. "Aw shit, baby. You know I can't stay mad at you when you that pitiful. Lemme get my purse and I'll take my lunch."
Ten minutes later they sat on the lawn in front of Butler Library, munching on chicken-pita sandwiches and eyeing each other as they ate. Any more of this silent treatment and I'll go nuts, thought Cleanthe, and she decided it was time to take the bull by the horns.
"Why were you acting like I didn't even exist back there?" she demanded.
"Wrx fgsh mrff rarf!" Cherise responded, her mouth full of fajita. Cleanthe punched her softly on the arm. "Didn't yo mama ever teach you not to talk wit' a full mouth? Get some manners, Girl!"
Cherise swallowed. "I *said*, how you think you treated me every time you came into UFM with Professor Whitebread?" She glared at Cleanthe. "You been in there shopping lotsa times, but I never heard a peep from you then!"
Cleanthe looked away. "You looked busy," she said, lamely. Cherise just looked at her. "All right, all right," Cleanthe said, dropping her empty fajita wrapper on the grass. "I don't know why. Honest, Reese, I don't know 'zactly why I never said nothing to you."
Cherise looked sharply at her. "I'll tell you why," she said. "It's 'cause you was acting White. And when you's acting White you can't be bothered to notice the help."
Cleanthe had a shocked expression on her face, like she had just been slapped. She stared at her friend openmouthed and stammered "what... what do you mean by that?"
Cherise reached over and took her hand. "Now, now, Girl, I'm not trying to bust yo ass over this. But I see this happen all the time with you College Negroes. While you in school you acting White all the time. You can't help it -- you just fitting in. But y'all is too busy with yo classes, and yo friends, and yo *teachers*" -- Cherise stressed that last word and stared fixedly at Cleanthe -- "to pay no mind to the rest of us who serves you food and cleans up after you."
Cleanthe looked down at the remains of her lunch, unable to speak. "Oh, now don't you go get all upset," Cherise said, laying her hand on Cleanthe's arm. "I already told you I ain't mad, so it won't do no good to start crying now." Cleanthe nodded; the lump in her throat was too big for her to talk. "Ancient history," said Cherise. "Now why don't you tell me all about Professor W -- the boyfriend." Cleanthe felt the tears well up and tried to sniffle them back. It was no good, and they started leaking out anyway. She began to sob uncontrollably. Cherise took her in her arms and held her for several minutes until the worst had passed.
"It's that bad?" Cherise asked, after Cleanthe had calmed. "Oh, Reese," Cleanthe answered mournfully. "It's so bad I can't even take it, and I don't even know why." Cleanthe rose from where she'd been resting on Cherise's shoulder and wiped her eyes on a crumpled napkin. "Tell me all about it," said Cherise, and Cleanthe did. She talked about how wonderful she'd thought it was -- the lovemaking, the books, their life together -- and how empty she'd begun to feel. She unburdened herself to Cherise about all the bad stuff, the things she had tried not to think about: the huge fight she'd had with Momma when she moved out, the way she never saw any of her friends any more, the growing distance she was sensing from Lewis. She even told her about the poem that afternoon and how bad she'd felt after the lovemaking.
Cherise snickered. "So you saying that he got off reading that poem to you?" "Well," Cleanthe said, "I'm pretty sure I had something to do with that, but it felt like it musta been intense." Cherise laughed outright. "Damn! Them Professors really do like the sound of they own voice, don't they!" That made Cleanthe chuckle too. "I know this one sure does! Then again, that's what turned me on in the first place," she added. "His voice."
"Her master's voice," Cherise murmured, and Cleanthe felt the blood drain out of her face. Cherise looked at her pityingly. "There's your problem, Girl, and you know it. You fell for your Professor because of who he was. And he -- he a middle-aged white Professor with a thang for little -- what you call that poem?" "Harlem Sweeties," Cleanthe whispered. "With a thang for 'Harlem Sweeties.' And then along comes you, batting them long eyelashes and moving all up on him already on the first day. What you think he gonna do 'bout it?!"
Cleanthe stared at her friend, realization and horror spreading across her face. Cherise looked back at her sadly. "You don't think you was the first, do you?" She tried to soften the blow. "This ain't about you, really. I see this all the time 'round here, Professors coming in to shop with they young students, giggling and hugging and acting like they boyfriend and girlfriend. Which they ain't, not really," Cherise added, shaking her head. "Look at it this way baby," she said in a soft voice, "at least he don't have a wife and kids like a lot of them do. You have no idea how bad it would have been then." Cleanthe nodded mutely.
They sat for a long moment, until Cleanthe broke the silence. "I have to face him," she said in a near-whisper. "It can't go on like this. I won't let it go on like this." Cherise nodded approvingly. "Be strong now, Girl," she said, "while you can. Remember who you are -- you Cleanthe, and you got along without him before and you will again." Cleanthe nodded her head, but felt a tear trickling out of her eye. "I'll miss what we had, though," she said. Cherise looked directly into her eyes. "Maybe you need to think about what you really did have," she said, "and not just what you thought you had." Cleanthe nodded again and hugged her friend tight. "I know what I have in you, Reese. And I'm really, really lucky." Together they cleaned up the remains of their lunch, and then Cleanthe headed back toward his apartment.
Cleanthe turned the key and swung the door open. He was standing there at the dining-room table flipping through his mail, clad only in a towel. At her entry he looked up, frowning. "Where were you?" he demanded. "I woke up and there was nobody there," he said, his tone petulant. "Where did you go?"
"i am in a box," Cleanthe thought, the words appearing in her mind. "on a tight string/ subject to pop/ without notice..." She stood stock-still, staring at him without speaking. He turned and advanced upon her. "Did you hear me?" he said angrily. "I asked you a question!"
Cleanthe dropped the key chain noisily on the table. She took a deep breath, put her hand on her hip, and looked directly into his eyes. "Don't you ever talk to me like that," she said in a voice that quavered only slightly. His eyes widened. "That's right," she said more boldly. "*I* will not *permit* you to speak to me that way. I am not your nigger, and you had better not treat me like I am."
She had shocked him, she could see that. "What's the matter? You don't like that word? It offends you?" "Hell yes," he retorted, finding his voice. "It's an offensive word. I don't like it, or what it signifies. I have never understood just how you people--" Cleanthe stared at him, her eyes big as saucers. "You people?" she repeated incredulously. "That's right," he blundered on. "All those young blacks, on TV and in the buses and on the streets, going on with 'Nigga This' and 'Nigga That.' Don't they understand that--"
Cleanthe interrupted him again. "Understand?! I think it's you who doesn't understand, Lewis. Who are you to tell me how to talk about black people? What the hell would you know about it?" He slammed the pile of mail in his hand down on the tabletop. "I know a hell of a lot about it!" he shouted. "Damn it, I know more about black literature and history and art and the black fucking experience than you'll ever--"
"But you'll never know what it's like to *be* black!" Cleanthe yelled. "And none of your precious books are ever going to change that! You egotistical son of a bitch -- YOU are going to explain 'black' to ME?!" He looked abashed, and so silly standing there in that towel. "Cleanthe--" he began, but she was too furious to stop. "You just remember something, *Doctor* Johnson," she went on relentlessly. "'Nigger' isn't some black word, it's a white one. And it's no good for you to get all upset and offended about it now, not after you people -- YOU PEOPLE -- have been calling black people 'niggers' for almost four hundred years. It was your books taught me that," Cleanthe said bitterly. "Your books that you wanted me to read so's I could be more educated, more aware. So," Cleanthe continued, flinging the words at him, "do you like me now? Am I everything you wanted me to be?"
He looked so completely baffled there in his towel, his damp feet leaving wet marks on the wooden floor. Cleanthe found herself irritated that such an intelligent man could be so dense. "Don't you see?" she asked, more gently. "The term's over, Lewis. We're not in class any more, and you can't be my teacher forever. I'm not your student or your protege. I'm Cleanthe Wilson, and I need you to respect that."
He took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before expelling it. They regarded each other silently, and then he crossed over the space between them and took her rigid, unyielding form in his arms. "Look, Cleanthe," he murmured. "I do respect you. I understand now. Why don't we just go back into the bedroom and lie down, and we can just forget this whole fight ever happened. I could read some poetry -- you like that -- and then we could, you know..."
Cleanthe pulled back and looked up at him, tears glistening in her eyes. "You didn't hear a single word I said," she whispered, as an agonizing ache started in her chest and then spread to her belly, twisting up her insides. "You just can't see me, can you?" She could feel the tears leaking out of her eyes and running down her face, but she refused to stanch the flow. "All you want is pussy, don't matter how you get it. That's why you come tomcatting 'round the black quarters in the first place, to get you some of that young, black pussy. And when you're through with one, you'll just go get another."
"Cleanthe--" he put his hand on her shoulder "--you're upset. Please, let me help. Do you need more space? Is that it? I'll do anything you want. Just calm down." Cleanthe jerked away from his touch as if it burned her. "Don't you get it?" she howled, tears streaming down. "I'm not going to be your 'Harlem Sweetie' any more! I refuse to be just one more of your persimmon-sepia-chocolate treats! Do you really think I don't know about the others?" He reeled backwards as her angry words struck at him. "How many?" she shouted in fury. "How many young black pussies have you fucked already? Do you even remember all the names, or do you just catalogue us by color, like in your poem, your favorite fucking poem?!?" He staggered back further until he bumped into the table, unable to withstand the force of her temper.
Cleanthe stopped, letting the red haze dissipate and her rapid breathing return to normal. Her vision cleared and she looked at her lover where he stood opposite her, cringing before her rage. "Never mind," she said in a voice filled with sorrow and an aching weariness. "I really don't want to know anyway. It's over, Lewis, over and done with. And no," she said wryly, a bitter half-smile twisting her face, "there's not going to be a farewell fuck this time." He looked puzzled, but Cleanthe really didn't care enough to explain.
She walked over to the dining room table and picked up the keys she had tossed there before. "I'm gonna come back for my stuff tonight, about seven," she said. "I'd appreciate it if you weren't here while I pack." She jangled the keys in her hand, staring at them for a long moment, and then pulled the apartment door open.
"So that's it?" he said behind her, pitifully. She turned and looked at him over her shoulder. "That's it," she said. "But don't worry. In less than two months you'll be teaching African-American Literature again, and I'm sure that Doctor Lewis Johnson will have no trouble finding another pretty young student who's eager to learn." With that she let go of the door, and she left it hanging open as she made her way down the hall.
As Cleanthe left the building and walked down Broadway a poem unfolded within her, the poem that she had heard earlier, during the fight.
everybody says how strong
i am
i would not reject
my strength
though its source
is not choice
but responsibility
something within demands
action
or words
if action is not possible
Cleanthe's head was clear, her mind's eye bright. The ache in her heart would be slow in passing, she knew, but somehow that was all right too. What mattered now was that the words were no longer his alone. The words could be hers as well, now that she had made it so. She was no longer content to accept the words of others. Now it was time for her to express her own words. And she was finally ready.
i write because i have to
END
INSPIRATION:
Langston Hughes, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," "Young Negro Girl," "Harlem Sweeties," "Harlem Night Club," "Love." Nikki Giovanni, "Boxes." George Bernard Shaw, "Pygmalion" (and the later "My Fair Lady"). Martin Scorcese, Nick Nolte, and Rosanna Arquette, "Life Lessons."