***
Alinda awoke in a daze with the lighter still in one hand and gripping the blanket in the other. She had no idea how she had ended up in bed, or how long she had been there. Searching under the pillow for her phone, she adjusted her eyes to make out the time: 2:40 a.m. A dry right thumb happily revealed she had been good.
Alinda rooted around the room for a loose leaf and pen, all intentions to write a to-do list. Going to the kitchen to pour a glass of wine, she settled at the dining room table to work. First, of course, she had to get her man back. Then she had to break the habit. Once those two things worked themselves out, everything would be okay. Alinda drained the glass and poured another. She googled adult thumb suckers and scrolled past the fetish sites until she stumbled across something she thought might work.
Getting Sean back would be a bit of a task, but it was one that Alinda knew had to be done. Sean was a good fit for her: tall, sweet taffy-brown, a little reserved at times but very ambitious. His father was from Germany and his mother from Barbados. Like Alinda, he had spent considerable amounts of his childhood in the tiny Caribbean island.
Sean was in love with the sea, too. He had painstakingly worked on shedding the North American accent he grew up with in order to adapt his mother’s sing-song tongue. Sean was very proud of his Bajan accent and made sure to bring it out whenever he attended Caribbean association meetings or danced in the glowing heat of Caribana.
That was the reason they met. Alinda had been asked to do freelance marketing and PR work for the organising committee, and Sean was assisting with the Barbados float. An aspiring event coordinator at the time, he was anxiously liaising with booking agents to get some of the hottest soca acts out of the island to perform. It was a huge responsibility, and Sean was determined to do well.
Watching him work from afar, tangling his fingers through curly, messy, ill-formed dreadlocks when going through a difficult negotiation or figuring out a budget, made Alinda smile. Sometimes he would take a break from his work by dancing to uptempo soca, and she longed to join in. On a particularly hot and stressful Saturday afternoon, he grabbed her in a slow wine as she was trying to go to the bathroom. It was an old, sweet Gabby: I am guilty of loving you.
They met up for drinks at a hole-in-the-wall after finishing up at the office. Nightcap at his apartment. They fucked that night too — slow and sweaty. He held her hips as she rode him into the daylight, applying slight pressure to his throat.
“This was unexpected but very appreciated,” Alinda said as she rolled over onto her side with a smile. She had learned how to sleep with her right hand between her legs when spending the night over at someone’s house, and always slept with her back turned just in case she could not be good.
“It doesn’t have to stop here, yuh know,” he whispered in her ear.
He kissed her on the forehead and rolled out of sticky white sheets to make breakfast.
That was three years ago.
Even though his things were gone, Sean eventually responded to Alinda’s calls. He was just a little taken aback by the sight, he’d said, and needed some time to think. How could he have a child with a 28-year-old baby?
No answers.
After several requests to meet face to face, Sean agreed to meet Alinda for dinner after work downtown a few days later. Over steaming heaps of oxtail, rice and kidney beans, Sean and Alinda tried to talk without saying the words.
“It’s a bad habit I had from the time I was a child. My mom tried to help me kick it when she found out I was still doing it at 14. For the most part I am over it, but sometimes I do it in my sleep and I don’t realise,” she recited.
“Oh. Okay… So can you cut yourself off completely?”
“Not without you.” She reached out her left hand to touch his, stroking his hand to draw attention to her fresh pedicure. He turned her hand and lifted it towards his lips, kissing her palm. Alinda smiled.
Everything she wanted should be hers.
Alinda rubbed her eyes and looked over at Sean who was stirring from his sleep. Not yet awake but still not sleeping, she suckled on the sounds of cabs whizzing by on the street below her, interjected by the din of conversation and people making their lives. She tried to fas’ up in her neighbours’ argument over their children, even though she could never exactly make out what they were saying. A man’s gait creaks in protestation on the floorboards in her fifth-floor walk-up. A woman’s heels pierce as she paces above – perhaps out of worry, perhaps out of anticipation.
But nothing was as calming as the crash and roll of the ocean hitting the shore.
The faint smell of coffee brews in the street – Alinda drank it in greedily. Curry spices the hallway and wafts into her bedroom. Light dances through the half-empty, watered-down tumbler of spiced rum sitting on her nightstand.
Last night after dinner, Sean and Alinda held hands and talked close and quick through busy Toronto streets. Made jokes and kissed. He gave her a ride home and came upstairs, “only for a little while.” Alinda dusted off the Mount Gay Extra Old in the cabinet, got some ice and two glasses. Tipsy kisses as two lovers stumbled in the dark.
“I can be the woman you need…” she assured as she unbuckled her man’s pants and unzipped his dark skinny jeans once they reached the bed.
“You are, and I know you are. It’s just…”
Alinda dropped to her knees.
Stilted, staggered breathing was the best Sean could muster. Alinda took him deep. He pushed her head further down the shaft of his dick, waiting for the slight recoil from her gag reflex. She looked up at him. He smiled. They fucked as lovers the same way they did as strangers.
“Mornin’ bighead,” Alinda nudged playfully as her man became more alert.
“Is who you calling big head?” Sean retorted with the deep tones of his morning voice.
“You see anybody else here?”
“If you want I could show you a real big head again…”
The swirling scent of stale rum lingering on their tongues made Alinda giddy as they kissed. Still, something about rum always made it taste better at home, in Barbados.
I remember the first time I drink rum. It was with Kerry. He used to be on the beach playing cricket with some other fellas from Fitts Village. He used to look at me when I was swimming. I was 16 and my body was starting to come out of its thin cocoon. I could never really understand how I was supposed to look. When I was in Canada, all of de men did like skinny girls, but in Barbados skinny girls don’t get no love: thick girls was the thing. One time the cricket ball near lick me down when I was coming out de water and Kerry run to me to say sorry, and ask me if I coming back tomorrow. I tell he I wasn’t sure… and I make sure to look all around to make sure that Miss Geraldine ain’t see me talking to a fella.
I went back early the next day. I choose the new swimsuit, the one with the polka dots, cause I see in a magazine that it does enhance natural pear-shaped assets. Kerry was there by he’self, shirtless. His darkness highlighted the traces of ab muscles. He had a yellow gym bag. We walk a little further down the beach to find the shade of the big manchineel tree so Miss Geraldine couldn’t see we through she back door. We talk ‘bout school and family and he beg me to say something “Canadian” so I tell he ‘bout poutine. He ask me ‘bout snow. I told him I prefer the sand. He tried to kiss me, but I push he off. All the magazines say you not supposed to give in to boys too quick. Supposed to make them wait. That way they will want you forever. Or until you give them what they want.
The next time I went to see he at the beach, he bring rum and two clear plastic cups. No ice. He say he t’ief it out he aunt shop. We went back by the tree and he pour some for me and some for him. I liked the smell, but it burn all the way down. I asked for more.
Then I let him kiss me. His lips were soft and tasted like sea salt, and he tongue was slick with rum. Kerry’s hands explored my body. This dance was better with a partner. He ran his hand up my beach shorts, inching closer and closer to my vagina. I could feel him trying to find an opening. He put one, then two fingers inside me, and I gyrated slowly to show my approval, my satisfaction. Kerry slowly pushed he boney self on top of me, pulling down he beach shorts. I push him off, grabbed my t’ings and ran all the way back to nana’ house.
Next time I see Kerry with his friends I went up to him to say sorry, but he cuss me and call me a lil girl who can’t take dick. He tell me to fuck off.
Don’t trust everything you read.
***
They slept.
It was the one time my brother came with me to Barbados. He didn’t like the sea. But he girlfriend was done wit’ he and he decide to look for a lil summer fling. He used to confuse nana wit’ all kinda ting he wanted to eat and nana used to make it for him: roast breadfruit and saltfish, fishcakes, cou cou and sardine, creamed potato and snapper. She say he is a growing boy and he should eat nuff to grow strong, even though he was already 21. She say Canadian food don’ give strong back and is soon time for he to make baby.
Food on the fire and they slept.
I was at the beach…Fitts Village beach. Danielle was on the beach with me. We were 18. She light skin was burning from the sun. She was from Austria and she father was a Rasta man that she mother meet on the beach. I never ask too much about that. Her curls ran down her spine, tickling her ass. It was a small ass, but I liked it. When we walking on the beach and hold hands nobody don’t say anything ‘cause we look normal. Like best friends. We was sitting on the beach at sunset and I tell she ‘bout my bad habit and she tell she wanna see how I does look when I doing it. So I show she. Then she take my thumb outta my mouth and put it down she pink bikini bottom. I tell she we can’t do that out here cause somebody gine catch we and tell my grandmother. She hold my hand and carry me to a lil shower stall in somebody beach house. She tell me that I pretty and she like my brownness. And then I kiss she and it felt like the breeze. Easy. Calming. She pull down my white shorts and rub she fingers between my legs like I used to do when I used to think about Kelly-Ann. Eyes closed, breathe deep. I start to hold she breasts and kiss them. Two round mounds in my mouth. If only I could suck on these nipples like this, all the time, just like this….
But then I hear screams. The sky was changing but I thought it was the setting sun. I hear Miss Geraldine son Donald hollering out for Greta! Greta! Greta is nana. I stop. I had to let go. I tell Danielle I coming back. I ran up the beach and cross the road. And the house on fire. Nana house on fire. Dem hollering for Greta and she ain’t answering. Dem hollering for Thomas and he ain’t answering. So I holler too. I wan’ run in the house, I wan’ find nana, Andre is a man, he could fend for he’self. I try to run in the house and the firemen stop me. I scream and tell them let me go, is my nana in there and I gotta go and help she.
I had to let go.
One of the neighbours had drag out my bed. The blanket was still on it. Nana had tell me it was a wishing blanket for babies, and all the babies in her house become prosperous people because of that blanket. I believe she ‘cause nana was always right.
I never look at nana again. I wanted nana to be beautiful in my re-memory. White roses and orchids at her feet. Body ripe with verbena. A bountiful harvest surrounding her. Blue and white robes adorning her charcoal heaviness. Neck and hands bejewelled with love. Everything she wants should be hers.
