Terri grabbed me by the hand and led me to the door of the kitchen. I resisted a little because I did not know what was on Terri’s mind.
“We’re going to finish snapping these string beans.” Ma Sweet assured.
“ ... And we don’t hear anything.”
Ma Black just had to ease her two cents in as Terri and I left the kitchen. Letting go of my hand, Terri began to run towards the bedroom door. Stopping just at the hall side of the threshold, she looked back at me just long enough to issue a challenge.
“If you want some, you better come and get it now before the two hens get up off those eggs they’re tending to.”
I was shocked, but pleased. I couldn’t believe my ears. “It must be the wine talking for Terri,” was my first thought. And the next thought was, “Damn who’s talking, I like the conversation.”
I quickened my pace to the end of the hall.
When I entered the room I closed the door gently behind me. I did not want my mom and Ma Black to think Terri and I would have sex right under their noses, even though they believed we would. We were in our own house, but I am not as open as Terri when it comes to talking to my mother about my sex life. Terri was already under the comforter when I made it to the edge of the bed.
“What are you waiting on?”
Can you believe it, I was actually a little nervous about making love to my wife in our own house. The thought of my mother hearing me hit it, just freaked me out, but it didn’t faze Terri. Granted, she had the benefit of about a half of a bottle of wine in her system. I kicked off my shoes and lay back on the bed. Terri took no time jumping into the driver’s seat. She tossed my old fraternity shirt she was wearing from under the covers, followed by my sweatpants and the pair of purple and gold thong underwear she bought when she attended her sorority’s national convention in New Orleans last summer. She began to work me like an S.A.T. math problem. Pretty soon, she almost had me figured out. She laughed out loud for no apparent reason. That spontaneous laugh thing was just kind of creepy to me, especially while holding the covers up and looking at my surprise package. As she held my firm want in her hand, she came close to my right ear, nibbled on my earlobe, slipped her tongue into my ear before she whispered a nice naughty something. She made me blush.
“This thing is as hard as Chinese Arithmetic.”
I laughed and the tension in my body just faded away. I rolled to my right and gave her a kiss that was as juicy as an overripe mango; just before we both disappeared under the covers. We got lost in each other. We had one of those rare moments, when soul mates connect like two cars in a high-speed head on collision. This quickie had to be one of the most intense in our history together. The afterglow was upon us and I was easy like a Sunday morning. We needed to get back to the kitchen if we were going to pretend nothing happened.
“You go out first.” I coaxed Terri.
“Negro please! After all of that trash they have been talkin’ to me.”
“Well, we can’t stay in here forever.”
“It’s our house; we can do whatever we want to do. You be the man and go out first. They won’t dare say anything to you.”
“What do you mean, be the man? Are you insinuating that I have been something other than a man prior to this opportunity to step up?”
“Chapman, you know what I mean.”
“No...I don’t...Don’t worry about it. I’ll do what I think a good woman’s good man would do. ‘It’s amazing how much of an expert women are on what a good man looks like, smells like, talks like, dresses like, provides like, makes love like. But ask her what a good woman should be and she doesn’t have a clue’.”
* * * * *
Chapman rose from the bed and took a quick bird bath. His intentions were to come back to the room when his mother and Ma Black began to mill around in the kitchen and in the den, so he could take a proper shower. He entered the den dressed in the clothes he had on when they left to go to the room over an hour ago, as if his clothes were going to fool those two wise old owls into thinking that they didn’t just knock each other’s socks off. He stopped before opening the bedroom door; glanced back at Terri lying on the bed with her eyes closed and absorbed every drop of the vision. The woman of his dreams was hard to figure out. He shook his head.
“Just when I think we made a connection, you screw it up.”, Chapman whispered to himself.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing baby. I’m going to tend to these meddlesome women,” Chapman exited the bedroom and shut the door behind him. Stopping in the hallway, outside of the door for a minute he then continued down the hall.
“Whew! No sign of the sexual interrogation crew. They must be napping.” His activity in the bedroom gave him the mid-day munchies. He poked his head into the oven to see how the edible Thanksgiving guest was coming along. Looking left, then right, he reached in and tried to free up the darkest piece of turkey skin he could find.
“Ouch! Damn, that bird is hot.” He was sucking on his finger as if he could actually extract the pain out with his mouth. Moving to the wall, Chapman picked up the phone with his non-blistered hand and dialed Thumper and Precious’ number. The phone rang three times before someone picked up.
“Hello...Billy speaking,” sounding out of breath.
“Love machine, what up? Sounds to me like you are practicing the ancient art of oral birth control.”
“Go to hell.” Precious’ voice could be heard in the background beckoning Thumper to come back to the bed.
“Look man, give us about an hour and we will be right over. You know we got to get the kids up and all of that.”
“Okay. I’ll see you then.”
After hanging up the phone, Chapman walked back to the room and peeped in on Terri. She was sound asleep. Then he looked into the guest bedroom and his mother and Ma Black were getting their nap on also.
He was a few things, but mad wasn’t one of them. So he took him a quick shower and donned some decent clothes. Returning to the den with the remote control in hand, he turned on the TV and football seemed to be on every channel, from the Discovery Channel to the Cooking channel.
“Let me check my TV One and see if I can coax some of those video honeys to dance for me.” Chapman finally got to the channel. “Oh snap. Football on TV One, on Thanksgiving day. Who’s playing?” It is Tuskegee University and Alabama State University in the annual Cranberry Bowl.
“What quarter is it? Five minutes left in the second quarter. Good the bands haven’t performed yet. Hell this isn’t FAMU, but it is black college football.” Chapman hopped out of his seat and dashed to the kitchen for a small snack.
“I need to eat something they won’t miss.”
Chapman began lifting the covers on pots, lifting dishtowels covering any pan that just might have some bread pudding, pie or cake in it. He saw a stack of pie shells. Empty pie shells might as well be graham crackers without the sugar. But, next to the stack of pie shells was a pot full of sweet potato pie filling.
“Jack pot! Mama always gives me some anyway, so I might as well get my pie filling up front.”
He had a smile on his face like the Grinch who stole Christmas. He put two heaping spoonfuls of pie filling in a bowl and ate another spoonful for the walk over to the freezer. He pulled a box of vanilla ice cream out of the freezer and covered the filling. Not too much, not too little. Just right! Quickly placing the ice cream back into the freezer, then he poured himself a glass of cold milk and made his way back to the den. Charlie Neal was on the screen with Nate Newton, Eddie Robinson, Jerry Rice and Doug Williams. Nate Newton was reporting the game scores and stats while sounding very much like Bryant Gumble, “Tuskegee