Childlike

Chapter 26 Amazing Grace

Almost finished! One more after this chapter.

Childlike Chapter 26

Amazing Grace

“You are the only man that I ever recruited that never joined the church,” she said for about the twentieth time since we had sat down to eat. She was on her third glass of champagne. “I guess that’s why I find you so attractive!” She was Greta Garbo this time, a tipsy Garbo, as she made love to me with her eyes. I wasn’t sure if I liked this new Yvonne. In fact I wasn’t sure which Yvonne she was. The sassy Brooklynite or the flirty Puerto Rican or Greta Garbo. But with every guy in the place looking at me with envy, I didn’t care. I felt that I had won the jackpot twice tonight and it was only nine o’clock.

“Cheers,” she said for the umpteenth time. I reciprocated and took a sip as she drained hers. I filled her glass again. We were in one of the hotel restaurants up on the top floor with a view of the mountains on one side and the lake on the other. Though it was dark, the shape of the lake took form by the lights from the estates bordering the waterfront. I was having prime rib and Yvonne was nibbling on Filet Mignon as she sipped her fourth glass of champagne.

“Not hungry?” I asked her, my plate three quarters gone, and hers barely touched.

“I’m hungry darling, just not for food!” She said, still as Garbo, giving me a wink and keeping eye contact as if daring me to say something. She then leaned over the small table into my face, her large green eyes inviting, her perfume intoxicating, and her body distracting. “Kiss me darling,” she commanded and without another word, I kissed her.

Perhaps it was the champagne or the way that she looked and tasted. But whatever it was simply swept away all my inhibitions, deafening my ears toward the warning bells ringing within my head and the loyalties of my heart. I don’t remember paying the enormous dinner bill or the walk to the elevator down to Yvonne’s floor and into her room. All I could see was the urgency in her face, the taste of her champagne lips and the feel of her arms wrapped around me, mixed with the softness of her silken dress as it warmed my skin. I don’t remember the door closing or the scratch of the harsh hotel sheets. It was all forgotten in the rising of new denim and the falling of emerald green silk. But within the mist of kisses and whispers in the dark, before the action of when two bodies become one, the door burst open spilling light into our darkness.

I looked over to see an older version of Yvonne filling the doorway, her smiling face laughing with a young man not much older than myself. She turned and saw Yvonne wrapped within my arms and her face twisted up like a sudden tornado. “What are you doing with my daughter! Get out of here!” She yelled, forgetting her man and rushing over to the bed. “Get away from her!”

“Get away!” Yvonne yelled out, shoving me with hands that only moments before were loving. “You are evil Joshua Nun! Evil! What would you have done to me if my mama hadn’t arrived?”

“Mama! Don’t you see?” Yvonne pleaded, her voice changing from anger to the soft voice of a small child. “He does want me. I told you they love me. All the guys love me. They never say no. Only Joshua. But he didn’t say no this time. He does love me.”

Her mother went over to Yvonne and grabbed her away from me, the light still glaring from the hallway. She cradled her daughter like a baby, pulling a blanket around her, hiding her nakedness. “I told you Mama, I told you that he’d want me.”

“It’s okay Yvonne,” her mother assured her. “Everyone loves you, everyone loves my baby.” She turned her head towards me, her eyes as fierce as a hawk, motioning with her head for me to leave. “They all love you,” she said, still staring, hating me with her eyes.