“Why are you always bringing up religion to make a point—”
“Woman, you know who you married! You know what I believe! Our first date was at church, Lydia! And I don’t care how I make my money. God always been at the head of my life. Now, I’m telling you, I intend to be a man about this situation, and I’m expecting you to be a woman. Like I said, we married. We love each other and we gone make this work. Case closed.”
Before she could say any more, to tell him this was her body, not his, and not God’s, either, his pager went off. When he left the apartment, she put her clothes in her overnight bag and drove down the highway to her family’s farm. She wasn’t worried about talking to her husband: he didn’t have the number to Miss Rose’s house. She didn’t want to talk to him, because she needed to prepare herself. If she was pregnant, she’d need to put distance between herself and him. And then Lydia would lie that she’d had a miscarriage and hope he believed her, but on Sunday morning, when Miss Rose started to sing hymns, Lydia woke up with cramps. She waited until Miss Rose went to church and called Dante to tell him the news. He sounded disappointed, but told her, it was like he said, God was in control.
That Friday, they were stiff with each other. They barely greeted when she let herself in. Lydia slept so close to the edge of the bed she was afraid she might fall on the floor. In the morning, Dante’s pager went off just after dawn. He was out the door before she could start frying breakfast sausage. He returned, but only for a short while, before his pager went off again. He kept going to their phone and calling, talking low into the receiver, and he didn’t look at her or give a farewell when he stepped out the door. Each time he left, Lydia would sit on the couch and change the channels on the television. She couldn’t make herself busy, she was so sad about him. In the afternoon, she crawled back into bed, willing herself to sleep. She awoke when she heard voices and music. She wrapped a robe around her and peeked out the bedroom door. There was a house full of people. She saw someone crushing a rock to powder beneath a glass, but they placed the entire small hill into the joint, sprinkling it on top of the marijuana bud.
Lydia closed the bedroom door. When she emerged fully clothed, someone she didn’t know asked, did she want to hit this? Lydia held out a hand. Sure, she might as well, and within seconds of smoking the primo she felt a glitter. A sparkling alertness, and her worry disappeared. She loved her husband and they had made vows for life. She walked to the table, where Dante was playing cards with Tim and two people she didn’t know. She peered over Dante’s shoulder, plucked a card from his hand, and threw it on the table. Tim called, “Book!” Lydia kissed the top of Dante’s head. She touched the place at the side of his neck that only she knew about, saying she was going to lie back down. She’d see him in a while.
In the bedroom, the glitter still clung to her. She closed the door to the bedroom, pulling off her clothes and then her underwear. She put her husband’s cassette of Luther Vandross on the boom box, and when she touched herself, she was already wet. She brought herself to climax once, twice, biting the pillow to keep from screaming. She kept touching until she heard Dante call to everyone, “Y’all niggers got to go.”
The bedroom door opened, and Lydia told him, take off his pants. Luther sang as she said, Come on right now, don’t worry about the rest of his clothes, come on. Dante moved inside her with his usual tenderness, but she bit his shoulder and told him, make her feel it. Do it hard. It had been so long since she’d felt him. She needed to feel him, and she turned on her stomach, spreading herself, as Luther sang. Do it, she said, and Dante was slamming inside her, saying he didn’t want to hurt her. Give him a sign, say something if he wasn’t treating her right, because he loved her too much to hurt her, but she pushed back against him as Luther sang. Her husband moaned, damn, he’d missed her so much. Oh, she felt so good inside, and she hadn’t ever let him go this far before. Was she sure he wasn’t hurting her, but Lydia was climaxing and couldn’t stop. It kept coming back around, as he slammed into her and called, oh, there it is, oh, Lydia, I love you, baby. He collapsed, his lips on the back of her neck, but she told him she wasn’t done. She wanted some more, because it had been too long. When he rolled off and lay on his back, she took him in her mouth, and in a few minutes, he was ready again. And he laughed, shuddering. Saying, Lord, woman, what has gotten into you, as Lydia climbed on top.