I wore a yellow Benetton v-neck blouse and my lone pair of Levi’s jeans I bought after saving my change from cleaning my grandmother’s school for over a year. The jeans, I washed only when visibly dirty to preserve the deep blue color for as long as possible. I knew that hanging them in the sun to dry would eventually wash them out, so I hung them up in my bedroom closet. It took two days for them to dry and when all the water finally evaporated, a funky odor emanated from the waistband. I covered it up by sprinkling baking soda over the offending area and waited two more days before before shaking them vigorously over the gallery railing. These were some of the few pieces of store-bought clothing I owned and the only ones in good enough condition to wear for such an outing.
That morning when I got dressed, I smiled at myself in the mirror, relieved to be looking like everyone else for once. He often boasted of his frequent shopping sprees in Heritage Quay. Every month he queued with hundreds of other people outside the government treasury to collect his paycheck and hours later with money in hand, off he went shopping for new clothes, square-toed leather shoes, and belts with many rows of silver studs. A few days later when the buyer’s remorse set in, he complained about how much of a ripoff the boutiques at Heritage quay were and how it was the sunburnt tourists who descended on St. Johns every Thursday afternoon when their cruise ships docked at the harbor. To comfort himself, he assured me he still had the money, that it was just in a different form hanging in his closet.
I stepped lightly towards his vehicle, taking care not to mash any stones that might poke through the spaces on the sides of my cream-colored jelly-heeled sandals. I bought them in November with my birthday money and had been saving them to wear for a special occasion. They were on sale for forty-five dollars at the Migo man store opposite Lolita’s Haberdashery. When I got into Colin’s vehicle, before I could even reach for the seat belt, he pointed at my feet and asked “Dem mek shit mashers with heel now?”
Then he started cackling.
Hot shame rose from my lower back to my neck. I sat up extra straight while I reached for the seatbelt and secured it. Didn’t he notice my jeans? Or that my shirt was from his favorite store? I kicked myself and thought I should have just worn one of the dresses my mother made for me instead of wasting my one suitable outfit on someone who didn’t appreciate it. But that would have probably set off another set of questions and comments. My normal clothes were all made from African print cotton and I always stood out among my peers who, no matter the occasion, always wore either blue jeans or batty riders and skin-tight blouses. He would have probably made a joke at my expense. Maybe point to the mixture of colors and patterns on the fabric and ask, “You tun rasta now like your daddy?”
We took off driving, not saying much to each other as he wove through traffic. His Discman in the center console played music through the car speaker but he drove so fast it was impossible to dodge all the potholes and every time the car dropped down, the music stopped and he had to reach over and press a button to restart it.‘Why don’t you just listen to the radio?’ I asked, tired of the same song restarting over and over again. He didn’t answer. He drove faster.
◆
His was the second house on the compound and the roof had metal stakes poking out on each of the four corners as did most concrete houses in the villages. People did this when they expected to build a second story in the future though in most cases, decades would go by with no further construction. With time, the rods remained visible, rusty, and corroded, some bent by sheets of galvanize or other debris flying during a hurricane but most still pointing upwards, a reminder of the hopes for largesse that not even a category 5 storm could dash.
An orange cat was pussyfooting in the grass next to the front steps. Before I could ask whether it was his, he glanced back at me and said, “That cat belong to the landlord.”
The front door opened to a living room where a floral patterned sofa served as a place for sitting, a dining table, and a whatnot stand. On one half were a telephone directory, an empty plastic tumbler, and a food-crusted enamel bowl. In the other corner were some CD cases, and a large block of something covered completely with brown packing tape. In the middle, there was room enough to seat one person. I followed him into the kitchen where a pool of whitish-yellowish liquid was drying on the floor. Taking care not to step into the spill, he opened the fridge, took out a small brown glass bottle, and unscrewed the red cap.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the floor.
“Some milk I dash way this morning when I was making porridge,” he said without looking down.
“Oh? And so you just left it there…” I said without judgment. How nice it was to have that much freedom, I thought. To live alone exactly how you wanted, even if in squalor.
“What happen? You waan clean um gimme?”
I laughed nervously and drained the rest of my Ting. He gulped down the liquid from the brown bottle and after the last swallow, his mood seemed to change. His face was more relaxed and when he went to the sink and lifted the tap and no water came out, instead of flying into a rage he shrugged and said that he forgot water was being rationed and it would not be on until 6 pm.
Suddenly, it hit me. I was finally alone with a man in his house. We had both discussed the reason for my being there. It had been months of encouragement on his part and stalling on mine. Eventually, I got bored with the back and forth and so agreed. I thought maybe it was one of those things you had to experience to see what you were missing. I looked at him and smiled with only my lips. He winked. My forearms tingled. It felt like sugar ants running up and down underneath my skin.
I glanced around the kitchen, trying to find something to comment on just to have something to say, but before I could, he grabbed my hand and led me to the bedroom.
While he was twisting open the louvers on both sides of the bed, I surveyed the top of his wooden dresser. There was an oval-shaped hard-bristled brush, an afro pick with a fist-shaped handle, and a tub of cocoa butter. A bible sat in the corner with what looked like pieces of dried thyme sprinkled over the gold lettering that said, King James Version. A gust of breeze came through the window and tickled the hairs at the nape of my neck. I shuddered. I heard the cat meow.
Turning around, I saw him staring at me as he kicked off his shoes. I backed away from the dresser towards the unmade bed, sat down, and lifted my leg, crossing it over my knee. The strong chemical scent of my plastic shoes wafted upwards. My sweaty feet slipped out easily, and I kicked the shoes under the bed out of sight. When I lifted my leg again, I noticed that dirt and sweat accumulated, leaving clumps of black between my toes and on the sole of my foot. Usually at the end of the day when I took off my shoes I would gleefully remove these clumps of sweaty dirt with my fingers and smell them before flicking them away. But now, with an audience I put my leg back down and rubbed my feet against each other to brush the dirt away.
He was now unbuttoning his shirt and moving to a beat only he could hear, swinging his hips and thrusting out his pelvis. When the shirt fell to the floor, he grinned and flexed his small but visible biceps. I lowered my gaze and laughed nervously. That seemed to encourage him.
Pretending to study the underside of my shirt hem, I watched through the corner of my eye as he unbuckled his belt and then, with much fanfare, dragged it from the loops of his green-tinged Levi’s jeans. When he dropped it and the buckle clanged against the tiled floor, I looked up and my eyes met him, and I could tell from the glint in his eye that to him, this was a game he knew he would win. Keeping my gaze, he unbuttoned his pants and slowly unzipped then re-zipped them, playing a game of peekaboo with his plaid boxers.
I wondered, could I change my mind now? Should I leave him right there grinning and testing the shelf life of his zipper? If I got up and hightailed it out of there, would I be able to find my way home? From a village that I had never even heard of before this day? Barnes Hill. Barnes Hill? The only Barnes I had ever heard of before was Barnes Funeral Home. And what if somebody saw me hot-footing it down the street and went back and told my parents? Would my plastic shoes even hold up? What if one heel broke clean off?
Then his jeans were on the floor and he stood – no, posed in his tiny boxers, and nodded as if I’d asked him a question and the answer was, Yes, of course.
“You plan to stay in your clothes?”
He cupped his hands cupped front of his pelvis and squeezed.
“Umm. Well…”
I had read too many books and imagined this happening differently. Wasn’t he supposed to undress me slowly as the soft sounds of a violin instrumental serenaded us? I pictured that with each inch of fabric removed, he would christen the exposed skin with a kiss. Wasn’t I to discover what sweet nothings sounded like as he whispered them to me? These lovely words were to distract me from the fact that someone was about to see me naked. But, here he was standing there squeezing his business and suggesting that I take off my own clothes. In front of him. While he watched. No, this was too much. So I sat there like a fool, grinning at him and waiting, too ashamed to request anything, expecting that as he was a good ten years older than me he would know what he was supposed to do.
“Well if you nar tek off fu you clothes, me go tek off fu me.”
No amount of calypso likening the male private parts to anacondas, cassavas, and bananas could have prepared me for reality. My mouth was at first agape then pulled in an O shape, reflecting my silent thoughts.
“Oh!” I said, my eyes wide open. I blinked a few times, then stared some more. Then I wanted to burst out laughing, but I maintained my composure and brought my lips together. I swallowed hard.
With some encouragement, I removed my clothes until I stripped down to a pale blue bra and a pair of black lace panties I stole from my big sister. All of mine were stained had fraying elastic or looked too childish. Black, and lace? That was bound to make me look grown-up. Sexy even. But standing there in my mismatched pilfered underthings, I felt foolish. I can’t even bring myself to revisit what happened next. But if forced to confess, this is what I’d say.
It took more effort than I could have imagined but after some time, he attached his body to mine and I lay there in a mixture of pain, confusion, and disappointment while he moved vigorously on top of me. His chest pressed against mine and he lifted long enough for me to catch a breath before he came crashing back down. He grunted and panted and sounded like my family dog Biddip did when we came home in the evenings and realized that we forgot to put water in his bowl that morning.
He carried on like this for some time, and I wondered if he was performing for my benefit and whether he knew it was a waste of effort. It seemed like his eyes were rolling to the back of his head and this exaggeration annoyed me. I thought my eyes should be the ones rolling back into my head for how they were stinging from his sweat pouring into the sockets. Was he faking it? If I found the strength to push him off of me and run into the kitchen and accidentally slip and break both of my legs just so that I didn’t have to continue would he think I was faking it if my bones weren’t jutting out from my skin?
While he continued, I thought about the milk on the kitchen floor. It looked like it had been there longer than just half a day. I wondered when was the last time he washed his sheets. I wanted to turn my face and wipe the sweat onto them but stopped myself. My face had only recently begun clearing up from years of nonstop acne and I didn’t want it to break out again.
At some point, I needed to use the toilet. His hip was pressing down on my bladder but I was trapped. He leaned up, finally releasing his weight long enough to ask me a question.
“You like that, baby?”
Before I could think up an answer, he was back at it again. While he enjoyed himself, I concentrated on the strength of my bladder. I wondered if I couldn’t hold it, whether he would notice a difference between urine and what seemed like the pints of his sweat soaking both me and the sheets. I was sure that by the end of this event I’d be like one of those cartoons run over by a truck. Flattened into the bed and maybe a gust of wind would blow and lift me off and there I’d go, sailing out the window and off into the distance.
When it was finally over, my eyes could barely open from the stinging, and my throat was drier than Potworks dam and I couldn’t tell the difference between the burning sensation of holding my bladder and the pain that was coming from further down. As he was lying on the bed next to me, catching his breath, I peeled myself from the bed and stiffly made my way to the bathroom relieved that he was too caught up in his recovery from his performance to watch me slink out of the room.
Now that I think back, I’m not even sure what I was expecting. Maybe some sort of salvation. I mostly just wanted someone to be nice to me. And if I was lucky, maybe it would have been something like an awakening. A rebirth of sorts. But all I got was sweat dripping into my mouth and then a soreness between my legs that took almost a week to heal.
When I returned from the toilet, he was in his boxer shorts rolling a spliff. I grabbed my clothes from the edge of the bed and covered myself with them, then backed away, heading back to the bathroom.
“I already saw you naked, you know?” He said without looking up.
Because no water was running, I couldn’t rinse all the sweat from my body like I wanted to, but there was a bucket of water next to the toilet, presumably to flush it. I folded a thick wad of toilet paper and dipped it in then used it to try and wipe my body as much as I could and then pulled my clothes back on. I hoped I would never again have to take part in such a humiliating and utterly useless activity.
What was the point of remaining chaste, anyway? Nothing about me had changed. Apart from my understanding of something I could not articulate.
I came back with my clothes on, Colin was standing by the window in his underwear exhaling smoke and studying the spliff in his right hand. He looked up at me with what seemed like a mixture of scorn and annoyance. A look I recognized as the one I flung at men who harassed me as I walked down Popeshead on Friday evenings after orchestra practice. They would shout, Smile nah? and Hey sexy gyal for me. And when I ignored them, their tone switched and they hurled insults like Yuh boney libba! You mighta glad somebody notice you! and Yuh ugly rass! You think any man want you?
“I hope you didn’t enjoy that too much, so now you think you ready to go and fuck a bunch of men you know?”
His facial expression differed completely from the smiles earlier. I stared at him, my bare feet suddenly feeling cold on the tile floor. My throat was itchy now and no matter how much I swallowed, it was still dry. I stared at him, my eyebrows raised in question. What happened? I wondered. His face was now a scowl. He pulled on the spliff and blew out smoke again, then said with a half-smirk, “I don’t deal with skettels.”
I regretted kicking my shoes under the bed. Now I’d have to crouch down to fish them out.