Read Online The Cheating Curve by Paula T Renfroe - Free Book Online
Authors: Paula T Renfroe
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friendly banter, though sometimes hostile discussions and debates occurred. Intellectual masturbation, Sean called it. “Sometimes there’s no other point to our conversation besides the fact that I get off on it, and it just feels so damn good.”
Six years ago he’d attempted to interrupt a zealous discussion Lang was having at a mutual friend’s barbecue in South Jersey. She was arguing adamantly that on a purely intellectual level, black folks could not justify the N word being acceptable for their use yet deplorable for white folks, when black folks perpetuated its use in the catchy hooks of music that white kids were bigger consumers of.
Just when he was about to interject and co-sign her, something about the unusual sheen of her skin shut down his entire thought process. He was mesmerized by it, drawn to it, he’d say time and time again. Reminded him of a brand-new, shiny copper penny. A reddish brown—no, a brownish red. “Like red clay dirt, if clay had a sheen to it. Like wet clay, then.”
At the cookout he’d asked her where her people were from with that uncommonly rich complexion, those high cheekbones, that keen nose, and those pouty, kissable lips. Told her she had to be a direct descendent of Jesus Christ Almighty Himself.
“Okay, that’s original,” she said, laughing.
He thought she had the cutest laugh he’d ever heard come out of a full-grown woman. It was childlike and infectious. Knew right then and there he’d propose to her. Hoped she’d say yes someday.
“Tell me, Alex Haley, how you figure Jesus and I share the same blood?” she challenged.
“Revelations, chapter one, verses fourteen and fifteen: ‘His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.’ Your skin is like burnished bronze, your laugh—no, your giggle is like a rippling stream—and your hair is like soft wool,” he said, stretching out her thick, shoulder-length, spongy twists. “You are exquisite.”
Langston had been both intrigued and skeptical of Sean that day.
“What are you, some kind of religious nut?” she’d asked suspiciously.
Sean had laughed a long, hearty laugh. “Not at all, just a lover of language and a high school English teacher. And you?”
“A manipulator of words of sorts. I’m a magazine editor.”
Sean admired Lang’s beauty even more today than he did back then. Yet, it was still her mind, her conversation, that stimulated him most. It was what kept him in the house cleaning on a Saturday when he’d much rather be playing basketball.
While the kitchen and the bathroom were strictly off limits to Sean, he was allowed to help Lang clean the living room—the “black love” room. The walls of their living room were covered with various photographs and prints of black couples together. There was an expensively framed poster of William H. Johnson’s Cafe, Leroy Campbell’s Charmed to the Bone lithograph, and a series of enlarged black-and-white wedding photographs featuring Sean’s parents, Lang’s grandparents, and Aminah and Fame, as well as one of Lang and Sean kissing in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens surrounded by delicate white orchids.
Sean brushed off the espresso-colored linen cushions and fluffed up the creamy off-white cotton pillows as the Ohio Players’ “Sweet Sticky Thing” blared from tall, thin, cylinder-shaped speakers in the living room. Upon entering the room, Lang patted and refluffed the very same cushions and pillows.
“You’re such a perfectionist. I don’t know why I even bother to try to help you,” Sean said, flopping down on the couch.
“Sean!” Lang screamed. “I just fixed those. Get your ass up.”
“Come here, woman,” Sean said, pulling his wife on top of him.
“Stop it. I’m not done with the couch. And I’m all sweaty and funky.”
“Forget the couch,” Sean said, nuzzling
Six years ago he’d attempted to interrupt a zealous discussion Lang was having at a mutual friend’s barbecue in South Jersey. She was arguing adamantly that on a purely intellectual level, black folks could not justify the N word being acceptable for their use yet deplorable for white folks, when black folks perpetuated its use in the catchy hooks of music that white kids were bigger consumers of.
Just when he was about to interject and co-sign her, something about the unusual sheen of her skin shut down his entire thought process. He was mesmerized by it, drawn to it, he’d say time and time again. Reminded him of a brand-new, shiny copper penny. A reddish brown—no, a brownish red. “Like red clay dirt, if clay had a sheen to it. Like wet clay, then.”
At the cookout he’d asked her where her people were from with that uncommonly rich complexion, those high cheekbones, that keen nose, and those pouty, kissable lips. Told her she had to be a direct descendent of Jesus Christ Almighty Himself.
“Okay, that’s original,” she said, laughing.
He thought she had the cutest laugh he’d ever heard come out of a full-grown woman. It was childlike and infectious. Knew right then and there he’d propose to her. Hoped she’d say yes someday.
“Tell me, Alex Haley, how you figure Jesus and I share the same blood?” she challenged.
“Revelations, chapter one, verses fourteen and fifteen: ‘His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.’ Your skin is like burnished bronze, your laugh—no, your giggle is like a rippling stream—and your hair is like soft wool,” he said, stretching out her thick, shoulder-length, spongy twists. “You are exquisite.”
Langston had been both intrigued and skeptical of Sean that day.
“What are you, some kind of religious nut?” she’d asked suspiciously.
Sean had laughed a long, hearty laugh. “Not at all, just a lover of language and a high school English teacher. And you?”
“A manipulator of words of sorts. I’m a magazine editor.”
Sean admired Lang’s beauty even more today than he did back then. Yet, it was still her mind, her conversation, that stimulated him most. It was what kept him in the house cleaning on a Saturday when he’d much rather be playing basketball.
While the kitchen and the bathroom were strictly off limits to Sean, he was allowed to help Lang clean the living room—the “black love” room. The walls of their living room were covered with various photographs and prints of black couples together. There was an expensively framed poster of William H. Johnson’s Cafe, Leroy Campbell’s Charmed to the Bone lithograph, and a series of enlarged black-and-white wedding photographs featuring Sean’s parents, Lang’s grandparents, and Aminah and Fame, as well as one of Lang and Sean kissing in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens surrounded by delicate white orchids.
Sean brushed off the espresso-colored linen cushions and fluffed up the creamy off-white cotton pillows as the Ohio Players’ “Sweet Sticky Thing” blared from tall, thin, cylinder-shaped speakers in the living room. Upon entering the room, Lang patted and refluffed the very same cushions and pillows.
“You’re such a perfectionist. I don’t know why I even bother to try to help you,” Sean said, flopping down on the couch.
“Sean!” Lang screamed. “I just fixed those. Get your ass up.”
“Come here, woman,” Sean said, pulling his wife on top of him.
“Stop it. I’m not done with the couch. And I’m all sweaty and funky.”
“Forget the couch,” Sean said, nuzzling
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