MULATTO (Iyila) (Editing)

chapter forty nine

"He is angry," Iyila said and pulled out one petal of the sunflower. It was a trick she usually played when she was a child. She would rush to the garden and pluck many flowers whenever she'd offended her mother or the mistress. It had always proved to be effective and when the final petal was negative she would hide in the stable until midnight when all were asleep. But her mother on many occasions still reserved her punishment until whenever she returned from hiding.

"He is not," she said again and pulled another petal. "He is angry," she pulled. Just two petals were remained. She didn't need to pull any more to confirm that he was angry. Sighing, she angrily flung the flower into the river and rested her back on the wall of the palm tree.

"He has no right to be angry," Iyila murmured to herself. She was the victim of the Negro's rudeness, not him. He had no right to be angry with her or even call her a flirt.

A Flirt! when that was his nickname. She couldn't understand his reason for being angry and the more she thought of it, the angrier and more baffled she became.

If anyone needed to be irritated it was supposed to be her. Of course, he'd witnessed the first instance when the Negro touched her thighs. Yet he'd done nothing but sit there and frown like someone, according to Hackit, who had been bitten by an Iguana. Although she didn't know what an Iguana was, she supposed it was a dangerous animal.

Her patience was strongly wearing thin like the sand on the shore of the beach.

She had managed his flirtatious lifestyle; his rotten temper when he had fallen ill back at Charleston; his annoying reserved behaviour; his cowardice in accepting his feelings. However, she was unsure if she could stand his arrogance and disdainful accusations of her being a flirt, loose, and being satisfied with the Negro's advances. The nerve of the man the man, Satisfied!

"Satisfied with what?" she yelled, ignoring the fact that someone might hear her or see her and label her insane. "Yes satisfied." a voice said from behind. Afraid, she quickly turned to see to see who had spoken. She had been so busy with her thoughts that she hadn't noticed someone approach her.

Hackit! The immodest fellow, and the last person that she wanted to see at that moment. Her frown increased and her body began to boil with rage.

A sly simper was playing around his face and he wasn't wearing a shirt.
"What do you want?" she said as she rose to her feet.

"To run your hands over my bossom?" she sternly demanded, her eyes narrowing.

"Iyila calm down," he calmly pleaded, "you have no regard for a woman."

"I was a fool," he said. His face was sincere but she didn't buy the charade. He'd caused her more trouble than a simple apology could expiate.

"Stay out of my way," she warned and turned away but he raced after her; calling her and at last caught her hand.

"Do not touch me!" she yelled as she angrily wrenched her hand from his grip. "Ok," he said, raising his hands in surrender as though he was afraid she would pounce on him. That had been her intent the moment she saw him.

She desperately wanted to pounce on him, to slap his face, throw a heavy punch at him, and continously kick him hard in his groin until he cried for mercy, but she couldn't. He was the same height as her and obviously stronger.

"What happened last night was unpardonable."

She scoffed, "Unpardonable you say, you treated me like I was some harlot, I know I am a slave but only my master has such priviledges not some primitive freed negro," she said, sounding more like Gabriel. She felt awfully proud of herself, those were the exact words Gabriel had used to qualify the Negro.