Читать книгу Play The Game - Doug Dixon - Страница 9

At three o’clock the school bell rang, ending my last class for the week. I put my books in my desk drawers and placed all of the papers from the day’s lessons in my briefcase to take home and grade over the weekend. I watched as my fourth-grade students rushed out the door with big smiles and filtered into the hallway with the other students.

Tangie put in a good word for me at Stephenson Middle School after the fourth-grade teacher moved out of state. I was glad to get out of Austell Middle School, being that my commute was about seventy miles round-trip. Stephanie teaches second grade, while Tangie teaches third.

After straightening up my classroom, I locked the door behind me and walked down to the teachers’ lounge near the front entrance. When I opened the door I saw Tangie and Stephanie sitting on the couch, looking exhausted.

“Girl, I’m so glad it’s Friday, I don’t know what to do,” Tangie said, pressing her palms against her temples.

“Girl, I’m ready to go home, take a hot bath, and sip on a nice, cool glass of wine,” Stephanie said.

“Wine? Girl, I need some Grey Goose and cranberry juice right about now, with these bad-ass kids,” Tangie said.

“I just want to go home and curl up with a good book,” I said, my eyes closed in thought.

“A book?” Tangie mocked. “Girl, you should be trying to curl up with a man. When was the last time you got some?”

I opened my eyes as Tangie broke my train of thought. “What?”

“You heard me—a man. I know your dad is a big-time preacher and all, but c’mon. You’d better jump on one of these fine single brothers out there. What are you waiting for?”

“Tangie, you know Mya is waiting for Mr. Right. You’d better tell her—”

“Mr. Right, huh? Ain’t no such thing,” Tangie responded with assurance.

“Amen to that,” Stephanie replied.

“One thing I do know is that I’m curling up with Mr. Todd Wilson tonight.” Tangie continued.

Todd Wilson had been the quarterback of Tangie and Stephanie’s high-school football team. According to Stephanie it was merely a sexual relationship that lasted throughout their high-school years. After graduation, Todd went to Alabama State University in Montgomery on an athletic scholarship, and never looked back.

“What? Todd Wilson?” Stephanie replied in disbelief. “Last I heard he was married with kids and living in Tennessee.”

“He was living in Tennessee but they moved back to Atlanta about a year ago. We ran into each other at the club this past weekend and exchanged numbers.”

“You mean after all these years you’re just going to spread your legs for this man?” I asked in a shocked tone.

“Hell, yes. Girl, you don’t understand. Todd was my first. Every time we did it, my fucking toes curled. It’s rare that you meet a man that can do all that.”

“Girl, where is your respect for yourself? That man is married with a family,” Stephanie exclaimed.

“Look, I’ve been married twice, and me and those bastards got on each other’s nerves. Hell, if you ask me, I’m doing his wife a favor by getting his ass out of the house every now and then. After all, it’s just sex.”

“Anyway,” Stephanie replied dryly.

“Yeah, Tangie, you can’t trust a man who cheats on his wife,” I said.

“You two just don’t understand. It’s not trust that I want…It’s that ten-inch dick.” Caught off guard, Stephanie and I laughed out loud.

“Now, if you two don’t mind, I will see you later. I have to get ready for my weekend.” Tangie winked at us.

Outside the window from the teachers’ lounge you could see the rain beginning to come down in drizzles. I gathered the rest of my things as Stephanie and I walked outside under the covered walkway.

“I’ll call you later!” I shouted as I ran to my car. Stephanie trotted alongside me as she ran toward hers.

After struggling to get my car door open, I managed to get inside. Heading toward my town house in Lawrenceville, I hit horrible traffic. I sat there for about twenty minutes on I-85, staring at the back of this SUV that blocked my view of the traffic ahead. I turned up the radio to hear my favorite song. During the course of a ten-minute music marathon, a commercial came on about ladies’ night at the newly opened club Nsomnia this Saturday night. Hmm, this might be a good chance to meet some really nice brothers, I thought. Still sitting in traffic, I grabbed a pen from my purse and wrote down the details of the event. I’m going to call the girls and see if they are down for it, I thought.

When I made it home I read through my mail, ate dinner, then headed upstairs and put on some shorts and a tee-shirt before lying across my bed. Another lonely weekend, I thought. I turned on the TV and watched the evening news before checking my answering machine. I had one call, from my Grandma LeVeaux. She’s my paternal grandmother and the grandparent I’m closest to. When I was little, I used to spend the weekends at her house and we would stay up all night talking about her childhood. Grandma LeVeaux lives in Metairie, an outskirt of New Orleans. She’s a mixture of French and Creole with a really thick New Orleans drawl. Grandma LeVeaux doesn’t play, either. She keeps a .22-caliber pistol with her at all times and will pull it out in a heartbeat. She spends her day mostly sitting on the porch, drinking her table wine, gossiping with her friends that live down the street, or she sits in front of the TV, watching game shows and soaps. She’s been on her own since my granddad passed ten years ago, but she’s managed to stay strong despite her loss.

“Hey, Grandma. How are you?” I called.

“Mya? Girl, Don’t ’hey, Grandma’ me. Why haven’t you called me lately, baby?”

“I’m sorry, Grandma, I—”

“I haven’t heard from you in over two months. What are you doing out there?”

“Nothing much, just working…I like the new school where I’m teaching.”

“When are you coming to see me? I see all of my grandchildren but you. You know Rodney is out of prison.”

“What? Really?” I replied, surprised.

Rodney LeVeaux is my one cousin who is fucking insane. He is my dad’s brother’s son. We grew up really close until my dad banned him from coming over to the house with what my father called his “devilish ways.” Rodney was in prison for robbing department stores in the malls around New Orleans. He would walk into a store about fifteen minutes before it closed, and hide underneath the clothes rack until the employees left for the night. Afterwards, he would walk around filling trash bags with clothes, then line them up near the fire exit. From there he would call his friends, who were waiting outside in their cars, and he would burst open the door, throwing everything in the trunk before driving off. Because he had prior offenses, the judge threw the book at him and sentenced him to four years in prison.

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“I don’t know. He came by here one day for a while and ate dinner with me but I haven’t seen him since. He asked about you.”

“Really? Has he gone by to see Daddy?”

“You know better than that. You know how your daddy is.”

My dad has a reputation for being a hard-nosed minister. I grew up in a very strict household. I couldn’t wear makeup until I was a senior in high school. Couldn’t talk on the telephone after seven o’clock until I was sixteen, and Marvin, my first love, had to join the choir and get involved in church activities before my father would even consider letting me go out with him. I was so afraid of my dad finding out, I was scared to let Marvin touch me whenever we’d go out on dates. Needless to say, he got tired of my excuses for not kissing him, and we finally broke up for a while until after my first year in college at Louisiana State University—which is where I saw a real, live penis for the first time, by the way. I actually lost my virginity to a basketball player named Lyndell Moody in the backseat of his Ford Mustang. He was so rough with me I was sore for about a week. Not to mention that fucker gave me crabs. The night before I was to go home for Christmas break, I was asleep and felt something crawling all over me between my legs. I jumped up and ran to the bathroom to check myself out. I freaked when I saw what looked to be little, tiny lobsters everywhere. They were on my pubic hairs, my arm, and even my eyelashes. I stayed up all night trying to kill them with rubbing alcohol but it felt like they were crawling all over my body.

I panicked and quickly called my Grandma LeVeaux, who laughed out loud when I told her what I was feeling. “Girl, you got the crabs, and alcohol ain’t gonna do nothing but stir them up. I tell you what—instead of going home, come stay with me for a couple of days until we get you fixed up. Just tell your parents you’re coming over to help me cook my Christmas dinner for the family. Oh, and bring all of the clothes and panties you wore for the week along with your sheets and pillowcases.”

When I arrived at her house early that morning, Grandma LeVeaux was up waiting on me. She had me get into the bathtub and shave all of my pubic hair off, then had me rub this ointment all over my body. She took my clothes that were in this garbage bag and put them in a barrel in the backyard near her porch and set them on fire. When she came back inside, she looked over at me with a grin and cooked us some breakfast.

I love my grandma. I could tell her anything about my life and she would give me straight answers, whether it hurt my feelings or not. It’s hard to believe how different she and my dad are.

In the midst of our conversation the rain started coming down really hard and lightning flashed through the window.

“Ohhh, Grandma, it’s about to storm. I just saw lightning outside my window.”

“Okay, baby, you’d better turn off your lights and get into bed so it won’t strike you.”

I smiled to myself. “Okay, Grandma. I love you and I’ll call you later.” I hung up the phone.

The rain continued to come down even harder as the daylight faded into darkness. It was the perfect evening to be curled up with the person you loved. I could hear the hard drops fall on my rooftop and along the leaves on the trees outside my bedroom window, like swishing waves in the ocean. My emotions were running wild as I began to get really horny lying balled in a knot with my pillow between my legs. I started thinking about old killer sex from back in the day with Marvin and how he used to get me right at my climax point before telling me he loved me softly in my ear, making me cum uncontrollably. And how he used to hold me afterwards, his soft, hairy chest pressed against my face. Just as my hand began to slowly move down toward my panties, the thunder suddenly exploded in the air like cannons going off, breaking everything that had a sexual appeal to it in my mind. I tensed up and grabbed the covers and pulled them over my head as my heart pounded from fear. Marvin, I thought to myself. He should be the last person on my mind, the way he did me. Embarrassing me in front of my…Before I knew it, the weight of my hectic day took over and I drifted off to sleep.