An excerpt from a story I am considering / working on: © 8/20/2013 Lamont Tanksley Sr. “You see,” she spoke quickly; “I want it. I’ll have something he –can’t take away from me.” Her voice was low and it was hard to hear the words. “All right,” he whispered as he took her into his arms in a loving embrace. She needed these words, this touch. He almost fell for the trap of needing it too. It helped to remember he could not have her. It helped to remember that as much as she wanted this, she did not really want this. “I love you,” she whispered into his chest. She looked up at him and smiled and he stared into her eyes as if he had not heard a word that she had said that evening. In fact, it was the fifth time that night that she had murmured the words. “I wish you could love me,” she said and felt her body shaking against his in sudden betrayal of her usual calm. Harriet Ratliff, his lover on this evening, was a woman of strong character. She was in her late thirties but looked like a much younger woman. She was not exactly beautiful but she had a vitality which attracted me. Her husband adored her. She represented something to him and so did he; they weren’t the same, though not exactly opposite things. He stared into the evening. She had her children and husband to go home to. He didn’t have the luxury of loving her the way she wanted. No, not the way she wanted. Not singularly. Not the way that a captain’s wife wanted and needed. And no matter how much she professed her love for him, she could not give up her life, her children, her lifestyle. And neither could he provide her with a comparable one. Gently he tugged her hair backwards, his right hand finding her breast harshly as she moaned he kissed her passionately. He pulled away from her, almost sorry that the Captain could not be more of what she wanted and needed. He turned suddenly, exiting her cabana yellow BMW M3 convertible swiftly. “I may come back tonight late. Leave the heavy curtains open so that I can see how he displeases you. Leave it open enough so that you can see me.” He’d have to get a rank insignia from the collar of his other uniform to replace the one that Harriet had taken from his shirt. Hopefully it wasn’t the one engraved with his initials. ALTHOUGH I DID NOT REALIZE IT AT the time, the day Harriet Ratliff came into our wardroom was one of the most significant of my life. That Harriet was a woman to be reckoned with, that she had an outstanding and very forceful personality, was obvious from the first, and that she was my commanding officer’s wife —was altogether incongruous, for women like her are usually subdued in manner, eager to please and so much aware of the precarious nature of their position as trophy wife that they suffer acute apprehension, which they cannot help betraying to those who are in a position to take advantage of it. Having suffered multiple insults and indignations from Captain Christopher Ratliff, I enjoyed knowing I was in the position to take advantage of her, that voluptuous body, and this situation, and therefore him, once I correctly affirmed that she was smiling shyly at me from behind her husband’s shoulder. As the first and only black officer on USS GEORGIA, I got my fair share of looks. Hate and discontent from those assumed my better, awe and bewilderment from the only other four minorities on the crew of 179, and a bit of eye batting from the wives, daughters, and girlfriends infrequently walking about. Trotting to my car in the cold was tortuous. A cold Washington night where the rain actually fell in buckets instead of annoying little droplets. A rain that brought something new hidden behind its thick sheets of translucent water that you couldn’t see through. Bringing along the howl of the wind to wet and chill you to the bone because singularly one was not enough. I was stuck in these thoughts, unable to leave my breathless body, running ever faster in the rain, until I realized that my breath was not gone but surrounding me, buoying me upward. I was barely treading water in the sea of my deceit. I did not see the shark. I did not know there was blood in the water and that it was mine. I did not know I needed to call out for help, to swim for shore, and instead I waved goodbye as I watched Harriet’s BMW motor efficiently away. I fell heavily into my Chrysler PT Cruiser and paused. Rain streaked down my bald head just as Harriet had slid down and across my naked body an hour earlier. Anger, love, pleasure, lust, hate—they were all there with our sweat, sighs, puffs, screams, and moans. And her husband, well he was in the car parked not far from mine.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 17:09:53 +0000
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