Jacuzzi. He had turned on the
bubbles so she could feel them all over her. She had leaned back in
his arms again and he was gently touching her hair. She sighed as he
nuzzled her neck.
“ God,”
he said,” I do love your hair. It’s so beautiful. It’s
so, so nappy, I just love it.”
He felt
Jada stiffen up in his arms. She pushed him back and slid to the
other side of the Jacuzzi, rising up in the water looking at him with
fire in her eyes. David realized he had just crossed a line of some
sort and would pay dearly for his mistake.
“ David,”
she said, her eyes flaring. “You are never to use that word
around me again, do you understand?”
Now
there are many things bad in this world, but one of them is a naked
black woman with enormous breasts standing up to her waist in a tub
of hot water with foam boiling around her. David would later reflect
that nothing had killed his erection faster than seeing the woman he
was deeply in love with angry. Jada put her arms on her hips and
looked into his eyes with a laser beam that burned into his brain. He
had two choices before him and neither was very good. But if he did
nothing, he would lose her for sure and he couldn’t allow that
to happen.
“ I
said something wrong to you,” he stated, trying not to seem too
meek. Show too much submission and she would look down on him. Show
nothing and she would think him to be using her. He needed to find a
way to make things right between them this very instant and bring
back the love. “I want you to tell me what it was and make sure
I don’t do it again. Jada, we come from different places. I’ll
continue to make mistakes if you don’t help me avoid them.”
He saw
her anger decrease by a fraction. It wasn’t much, but it was
headed in the right direction. Her eyes softened a bit and her
breathing slowed down. The fire in her eyes dimmed somewhat. He had
to let her speak.
“ There
are things you are never to speak of, do you understand?” she
began. “There are words you are forbidden to ever use around
me, is this clear? David, I love you, but I will not tolerate certain
things being said around me. Is this understood?” He nodded and
prayed it would be enough.
It
wasn’t.
She
lowered herself back into the water and continued to look at him with
a level of anger that would not go away. He had to be careful. This
was going to happen sooner or later.
“ I
will give you a list right now,” she told him. “There are
some words I am going to say to you that will never be repeated, no
matter how angry you may be with me in the future. Listen closely
because this is very important. Never forget this moment.”
And she
told him every hateful racial term she could think of. Every foul
word she had ever encountered used against a black person in general
and a black woman in particular. David could see the pain it sent
through her saying them and he felt the agony it caused her to say
them. Some things are left unwritten even if they were experienced.
And then
Jada was quiet. So was David. He wanted to go to her and feel her
body next to him, know the anger was gone, was seeping away. But he
couldn’t do it. He didn’t want her to think him a
weakling eager to gain favor with her for sex. He loved her and was
afraid anything he did at that very moment could ruin it all. They
were coming down from a beautiful weekend, why had he been so stupid
to say that to her? Inside, he was working himself over with a cane,
calling himself every kind of fool imaginable. He knew how proud she
was. This was the woman he wanted to have children with. But the
wrong word would destroy everything.
“ Jada,”
he said very slowly. “I will never use any of those words to
you and any children we are going to have.”
Her eyes
went wide again at the word “children” and she waded
through the water to David, grabbing his face and planting kisses all
over it. He felt her anger drain into the water and seep away. But it
could
Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain