Wedding Day No. 08

What is it about a wedding?

Here I was, at 75, dancing with a Black woman and thinking pretty hard that I would be an adulterer before this night was over.

Okay, I could blame the alcohol. I was at least four beers into the post-wedding party, not really a formal reception, more a party. At my age, I figured I was at least twice as old as most of the people here and more like three times the age of many of them.

And the pot had something to do with it. I was flattered, actually, when I walked out, smelled the special aroma of a joint burning, and had been invited to join the group. So I was buzzing from the alcohol and the pot when this Black woman approached me and asked, "Care to dance, White Man?"

I looked her up and down, and she was worth the look.

I have no idea what you might call that garment she wore. It was all bright patterns and colors, something you would expect to see in a formal tribal dance of celebration somewhere in the Africa of Tarzan. It covered every square inch of her skin except her face and hands. Well, the tops of her feet peeked out from time to time, big feet with the sandals she wore showing the dark skin and interesting little tufts of hair at the tops of her toes.

It was her face, though, that had me thinking adulterous thoughts. I can't say that she was pretty, but she was striking in that way any exotic creature draws the eye. This was the face of a woman whose genetic lineage had never been corrupted by a randy overseer. Her skin was the color of cocoa, so dark the word Black actually made sense. She had the broad nose and thick lips of her race and when she smiled, ivory teeth looked bright white but that was only the contrast with her skin. Her eyes were so dark they could be called black too although if you looked closely there was a hint of brown. I tried to imagine the strength in her arms it had taken to use a hairpick for God only knows how long to fashion kinky hair into that beautiful round cap.

I had a quick memory of some silly rom-com movie I had seen once where one of the white actors kept referring to his Black love interest as his "Nubian Goddess."

I was looking at a Nubian Goddess.

So I took her hands in mine and said, "Care to dance, Negress."

She smiled at that, a good smile, and said, "Very good."

The diction, the way she formed her vowels, the tone she used, and the pitch of her voice said a lot. This was an educated woman. I could picture her behind a well-tooled wooden desk reviewing written reports or, I thought more likely, standing in front of a classroom, no, a graduate-level seminar, sharing rather than lecturing. She had that look to her.

In the flat sandals she was a couple of inches shorter than my 5'10" and my hand on her back quickly discovered that there was nothing but her under the, dammit, what is that thing.

Hang on while I google it.

Okay.

In the flat sandals she was a couple of inches shorter than my 5'10" and my hand on her back quickly discovered that there was nothing under her Kanga but, well, her.

And I liked, very much, that she didn't seem to object to my hand's wandering.

"You like what you're finding there, White Man?" she asked. And her voice, no, that's not right, her diction changed subtly. This wasn't a question asked by the business executive or the college professor, this was a woman who might wait tables or assemble boxes in a factory.

"I do, babygirl," I said, trying for the tones I heard from time to time in movies featuring Black actors and dialogue.

"Mmmmmmm," she hummed and it felt like I had struck some sort of a nerve even if I wasn't sure exactly what it was.

She leaned back enough to meet my eyes with those deep black pools of her own eyes.

"Do you want me, Phillip?" she asked and there was the business executive or the college professor again in her words, not to mention the superior knowledge she had since she knew my name and I had no idea what hers was.

"Oh yes, my Nubian Goddess," I said, dipping into my film lore.

She stopped suddenly, making me almost stumble.

It was one of those timeless moments and I just knew everyone in the place was looking at us. In a movie, the rest of the dance floor would have been darkened subtly and an equally subtle spotlight would have illuminated us for the conversation that followed.

"No, Phillip, not a Goddess. Just a nigger slave to be bought and sold and used as my master chooses," she said, her voice still that of the professor but her words shocking my child-of-the-Civil-Rights-Movement sensibilities.

When I didn't say anything her face fell.

"I understand if you're not interested," she said, starting to turn away.

I caught her hand and pulled her back to face me.

"Yes, girl," I said, meeting and holding her eyes, "I want you. Now knock off the bullshit or I'll strap your black ass."

Once more the change was subtle, but it was there. I had said the right thing and she was, well, happy.

"Yassuh," she said, and suddenly I felt like it was 1860 and I had just come from the slave auction.

And for the first time in years, I suddenly got hard without taking one of my Viagra pills.

"Ah'll be yo good girl," she said, her back arching, pressing herself against my surprisingly hard dick.

My breath caught.

"What is your name?" I managed.

She looked up at me, pure sex incarnate, and said, "What do you want it to be?"

So I thought. What slave names had I heard in the movies, or in books?

"Okay, Eliza, let's go congratulate Stephen and Meg and slip out of here," I said.

"And slip into me?" she said, looking at me sidelong and giggling.

"If you're a good girl," I said.

She stopped at one of the young black men who had been in the wedding party, Taylor was the name that came to me of the hundred or so I had been introduced to that weekend.

"Honey," she said, and it was the college professor again, "Phillip here has offered me a ride and I think I'll take my tired self home. You young folks have fun now, okay?"

He hugged her, and said, "Okay, Mama, thank you so much for coming." When he released her he shook my hand and said, "Mr. Morgan, you be careful now, you hear. She's my Mama."

I grinned, shook, and said, "I'll keep her safe."

He met my eyes with a bit of a scowl and said, "You'd better."

"Stop it," Eliza said, taking my hand and dragging me away.

Stephen and Meg, my son and his bride of a few hours, were, of course, surrounded by well-wishers.

I caught his eye and he dragged his bride over.

"Latitia," he said, taking Eliza's hand and finally letting me know her real name, "Thank you so much for coming. Taylor said you might not be able to."

She hugged him, kissed his cheek, and said, "I wouldn't miss my white son's wedding, Honey, you should have known that."

He chuckled, hugged her again, and turned to me.

"Thanks, Dad," he said, wrapping me in a bear hug, reminding me that he's WAY bigger than I am these days.

"As the lady said," I said, "I wouldn't miss my white son's wedding. You should have known that."

He laughed, said, "Well, thanks anyway and tell Paula we missed her. Now I HAVE to go mingle."

Eliza, meanwhile, had Meg held at arm's length.

"Now listen, white girl," she was saying, but she was smiling too, "You be good to my extra son here or I'll be back."

Meg laughed, hugged Eliza, and said, "I intend to work him like a red-headed stepchild."

Eliza turned oddly serious for a second and said, "Work him like a field hand."

"Come along, Nubian Goddess," I said, "let the children play."

She took my arm in that two-hand way women use to demonstrate their claim, and we headed for the door. I exchanged greetings with the few people I knew there, my new in-laws, my ex, her husband, and some of the ex's family members who weren't still mad at me.

At my little car, Eliza giggled and actually clapped her hands.

"Oh, Phillip, can we put the top down and go for a ride?" she asked.

I helped her into the low seat, catching a flash of unshaven calf and realizing that she was a natural girl, and then ran around and got under the steering wheel.

I flipped the two latches, reached up, and gave the shove that lowered the top.

Her smile practically glowed.

I thought for a second, grinned at her, and set off.

It had been years, hell, it had been decades since I had been in this town, but I thought I remembered a drive that would be fun for my Nubian Goddess/Slave Girl and would be off the beaten track so I wouldn't risk catching a ticket and being required to take a breathalyzer test.

My little car is pretty civilized for an open-top car, and we could have a conversation without yelling if she wanted one. But I figured it was her show so I waited.

Besides that, just driving the little open-topped sports car on the twisty road along a great river is fun all by itself. The night was warm and the moon bright enough that I suppose I didn't really need headlights. So I watched the road and listened to the pleasant burble of the exhaust.

We were almost to the next town upriver and I was starting to think about looking for a place to turn around when she finally spoke.

Well, speaking was only part of it.

She unzipped the top of her Kanga, using a zipper I didn't know was there.

She reached inside the neck and pulled out a very shiny chrome chain, like you would find at the pet store in the section designated "big dogs," and handed me the leather loop at the end of the chain.

I could see that what was around her neck wasn't some sexy choker necklace or even the kind of dog collar you see in BDSM porn. This was a ring of heavy steel. It looked like it had been welded. I didn't see any obvious way to take it off of her.

"Phillip," she started and then stopped, obviously collecting her thoughts before she took a deep breath and started over.

"Phillip," she said, "I know there's some seriously fucked up psychology going on with me, so this is your chance to say 'get the fuck away from me psycho bitch,' after you hear what I have to say."

I nodded.

She took another deep breath and started.

"I'm a full Professor at a university," she started, "teaching Women's Studies, African-American Studies, and a special seminar for graduate students, America's Peculiar Institution. The more I read and learned, the more I believed I needed to, well, to experience at least in some way, what my ancestors experienced."

She took another deep breath and I pulled into the little Greasy Spoon diner on Main Street.

"Come on," I said, getting out of the car and walking her into the diner. I tucked the leash into her Kanga, out of sight.

The diner had a few patrons and my Nubian Goddes drew looks as we found our way to a table. I ordered a Vanilla malt and Latitia, I was thinking of her as Latitia now, ordered two pieces of cheesecake and milk.

"Phillip," she said around a bite of the cheesecake, "I started my, well, my experiment I guess you'd call it, as sort of role-playing. A friend of mine, yes, another professor, sold me, to a guy at a convention in town who was looking for a hooker."

She paused to take a bite, chew, and follow with a drink of milk. I could see that even talking about this was getting to her.

"I had never done anything like that before," she went on. She giggled then and met my eyes with hers, "I liked it. Phillip, it was LIBERATING. Things got more intense. The next time, my friend the professor, and yes, I'd talked to him about it. He's a long-standing friend and I talk to him about things I'd never imagine talking to my husband about. So anyway, he was my pimp pretty much every weekend for a couple of months before he took me to the next level."

Another bite of the cake and a drink of milk. I said nothing. It was her show.

"Phillip, he took me to a place called the 1619 Club," she went on, "do you recognize that?"

"Something about slavery," I said, "The first slave ship, right?"

"Yes," she said, smiling, "you get a gold star. But the 1619 Club was kind of, oh, I don't know, Westworld without the cyborgs. It's several acres, behind serious privacy fences, and it's 1619 in there. Before I could even take it all in, I had a bag over my head, my clothes were torn off of me, and I was put in a box. It's amazing how slowly time passes when you can't move, and the box had me stuck in a position, on my left side, unable to turn over. I don't know how long I was in there. Certainly not the 80 days of the Middle Passage, but long enough that I shit and pissed myself. Maybe a 24-hour period."

Her fingers trembled a little, I think from the memories, as she forked a couple of bites of cheesecake into her mouth, followed by the milk, and then she sat silent for a minute.

"My friend had it worked out with my husband. He told him that I was being surprised by the university with a two-week trip to explore some new archaeological site related to early African-American settlement," she said, giggling, and then went on, "So after some timeless period the box was opened and I was jerked to my feet by my hair. Before my eyes could adjust a bag was on my head and," and she stopped here, took a deep breath, "and when I yelled, demanding an explanation, I was strapped and told to shut up."

She was breathing heavily now, I could see that the telling was getting to her.

"Go on, girl," I said, my voice gentle like I would with a frightened deer.

She was crying now, not heavy sobs, but tears wet her cheeks and thick clear mucus was thick on her upper lip.

The waitress, a sturdy, attractive, thick blonde I guessed in her mid-30s came over.

"Is everything all right?" she asked.

When I said "yes" she glared at me and reached over and touched Latitia's cheek.

"Is everything all right?" she asked again.

"Yes, Dear," Latitia said, smiling. "My son's best friend, my friend here's son," and she reached across and touched the back of my hand, "just got married and I'm just being a silly, over-emotional woman. We're fine, Dear, although I would like another glass of milk please."

The waitress earned the big tip I left when she looked at me speculatively but then left us alone.

"Go on, girl," I said again.

"I learned why my ancestors couldn't fight," she said. "I would yell and I'd get my back strapped. If you've never had that happen, Phillip, not a spanking, or even a whipping, a strapping with a heavy leather strap laid across your back, not your ass, then you don't understand how a human being can be broken. And they broke me, Phillip. I held out for, maybe, five minutes before all I could do was sob and do as I was told. They pushed me, still stinking, shit on my ass, hungry, naked, and then they lifted my arms and put handcuffs on me before they hosed me down with cold water."

The tears were still running down her cheeks, and the way her nose was running there was a string of mucus hanging from her chin that she swiped at, disgustedly, as she took another drink of her milk.

"Hands turned me and then they hosed down my front and it was like I was being waterboarded. I coughed and puked and someone said, 'Jesus fucking Christ, get the hood off of her. This is a valuable piece, we don't want her to drown in her own puke.' The sack was pulled off and the hose hit me in the face and I was coughing. Shit, I was drowning. And they were laughing at me, Phillip," she said. "But finally they were satisfied, uncuffed my wrists, and pushed and shoved me, stumbling, still weak from hunger and cramped from being in that fucking box, unable to move, to the blacksmith's shed and they put this on me," she opened the neck of the Kanga, showing me the heavy steel collar she wore. "It's WELDED," she said, her voice rising for the first time in her narrative, "I haven't had it off in six years."

She carefully zipped the Kanga, thanked the waitress when her milk was delivered, and drank some, looking at me.

"They SOLD me, Phillip," she said. "They pushed me over to the auction barn and hooked my collar onto a line. There were five of us for sale that day and I was last. An old woman, 'wizened' is the word, was first in line, and she was presented as a 'nanny.' Next was a young man, hell, Phillip, he looked like a football player, who was sold as a 'field hand' although the plump, 50-something who bought him made me think she had other plowing in mind. Two more men were sold, one, 50 or so, was sold to a man so obviously gay you expected him to burst into flame, and one to a guy that might have actually wanted a laborer."

"And then it was me. I was terrified. They pushed me up onto the auction block where I stood, naked and shivering while the auctioneer introduced me as 'prime nigger bed warmer.' He displayed me, pulling back my lips to show my teeth. Making me stand with my legs far enough apart that he could lift my clitoral hood and show the goodies."

"I sold for one thousand, two hundred-fifty dollars to a guy, I never learned his name, who didn't say a word to me. He loaded me in the back of a horse-drawn wagon and carried me to a small house. Inside were a dozen young men, drinking beer, and the guy who bought me handed my leash to one of the men there and said, 'Here's the entertainment for your graduation party, son.'"

I could tell the story was winding down, so I waited her out.

"For the next two days, I was not really human, Phillip. I was a thing to be passed around. It was, 'Over here, nigger,' or, 'suck this good, girl.' or 'spread those fucking legs, cunt.' And the thing is, Phillip," and she was crying harder now, "I started liking it."

"Okay," I said, standing, "Come on, girl."

Her eyes were big when she looked up at me but then did as she was told, got up, and followed me.

The waitress asked if everything was okay and Latitia assured her it was.

The ride back to the Airbnb was silent. I suppose we were both thinking.

I'm not proud of what happened that night, but I'm not ashamed either. I realized what she needed, and I gave it to her. And yes, I enjoyed it.

At the little house, I told her to take off her clothes while I went and peed.

When I got back to the front room she was standing, right where I had left her, naked except for the heavy steel collar.

I sat on the couch and said, "Fetch me a beer, girl."

She went to the kitchen and I watched her. And she was worth watching.

She had the heavy breasts and the bubble butt of her race, her back arched and that sweet ass sticking out proudly. Her skin was very dark, chocolate brown, and I could see that her large nipples and areolas were darker still, hard cones, tight with her excitement.

Walking back to me she was just as much fun to look at. Her wide hips flared nicely, and her belly button was a deep innie. Her thighs were a little heavy, her legs tapering to almost delicate ankles.

But the most obvious thing about her was that this was the hairiest woman I had ever seen.

I took the beer from her hand, took a deep drink, and just looked as she stood before me.

Her pubic hair started above her belly button and spread almost to her hips making a wide diamond, not a triangle like most women. The hair was thick and very black and curly and ran well down her thighs.

"Arms up," I said.

She took a deep breath and lifted her arms straight up. The hair in her armpits was as spectacular as the hair on her belly. It was thick and black and curly and ran up her arm a few inches and down her sides to her breasts.

Her legs were hairy, the hair thinner on her thighs, thicker on her calves, and even little tufts on the top of each toe. Her arms were the same way, her upper arms lightly covered, her forearms showing thick hair, and her fingers had those same little tufts on the tops.

I was fascinated, looking at her, at the way the skin of her palms and, I assumed, the soles of her feet, was much paler.