Tuesday, May 22, 2007

"I Love My Wife"

Story Week is dedicated to The Good Nurse because she scratches out my head when I was ailing. LOL, Naaaa, just playing. The Good Nurse called an Oldgirl to check to see how I was doing. It was good talking to you, gal! I was a bit blue and you put a smile on my face:) Thanks for the pick-me-up!

Welcome, Boys and Girls!

It's story week!

I will probably do a foreword and a story. An afterword of my personal thoughts may or may not be posted the following day.

Foreword.

The name of this story is "I Love My Wife". It is part of the the Biscuit Blues Anthology, LOL. (But I do like the sound of that, ya know?) But if you haven't read "Buttermilk Biscuit Blues", a story I posted a couple of months ago, then go back and read it.

Two of the stories this week are prequels to that.

The stories grew out of an excerpt from my Sweet Heat manuscript. All are set back in 1981, regarding some issues between Sylvia Ellison and her husband, Fred Ellison.

For some reason, my elite critique team, including the Good Nurse, who barreled through all 1003 pages of Sweet Heat (thanks, girl!), really liked one of the minor characters, Sylvia Ellison, She's a mother figure to the male protagonist Samuel and a voice of reason in the whole book as well. The critique squad got really excited about a very interesting storyline concerning some past issues with Sylvia and her husband Fred ("I want to know more about THAT Lee"!). This very minor storyline is very interesting, enough for a whole book in itself. But I am not experienced enough to write it just yet. Gotta dig into some backgrounds here and there.
So these stories are just a way of me to trying to wrap my mind around that storyline and the Sylvia and Fred Ellison characters. Be forewarned that they are very rough, and need work, but I got the information that I was looking for from them, which was my goal in the first place.

The following story is from Fred Ellison's point of view.

So without further adieu, I present "I Love My Wife"


I Love My Wife

I love my wife.

And if anyone even dreams of saying that I don’t…

Man, they better wake up real quick and apologize.

I do love her. I love everything about her. Her cocoa brown skin. Her sexy brown eyes. Her body, so fine and thick that when she walks across the room, my eyes zoom in on her like lasers.

I love the little things, too. I love the way the bathroom smells after she has finished taking a bath. I love that sound, that hiss, as she pulls that hot comb through her hair. I love the way her big toe curls slightly towards her middle toe. Her laughter when she talks on the phone to her family and friends is music to my ears. I love watching her as she reads a bedtime story to our son. I stare at her for hours as she sleeps, wondering if she dreams of me. Her light snore lulls me into a peaceful sleep at night.

Yes, I love my wife. She is a good wife, more than I could ever ask or hope for.

But I also love the chase. The chase is where it’s at, and the chase is all I think about. The high I get when I bed a new woman is a high better than free drugs. Going to a club, sitting at a bar, and catching the eye of some hot young thing at the far end is the sport of champions. One flash of my million dollar smile and a casual wink of my eye are my rod and reel. I reel them in like a fish. They're ready to be cleaned, battered down, and fried. Hell, It ain’t even necessary to hide my wedding ring. This is 1981. There are women out there, looking for a man, any man, married or not. And I’m a tall fine dark brother. I am what they all want. I am what they all need.

I please those women. I know I do by the way they moan my name late in the midnight hour. They worship the ground I walk on. They plead with me not to go, but I slip on my clothes and tell them that I have to go. It ain’t nothing for me to bed them and get up and get on to my house, to my wife, to my own bed.

Now, most of them have their own places. I would never take a woman back to my place. Not to the bed that I share with my wife.

That would be disrespectful.

I love my wife too much to do something as foul as that.

I’ve ran as many as eight women at a time, and that’s not easy. Some want more time than others, and some are just happy to get a moment of my time. Some are wild and kinky. A few are innocent and needy. Sometimes it’s hard to keep everybody straight.

No, maintaining eight different households wasn’t easy. It's easier to keep five or six different chicks on the team. My wife Sylvia always runs point.

And as long as they all play right, they all stay in the game.

And if anyone of them acts up? That broad rides the bench.

Hell, she might even get traded.

But I always come home to my wife. She never asks questions. Never fusses or nags. She always has a good hot breakfast ready, even taking the time to fresh squeeze my orange juice. She knows to have my newspaper on the table, open to the sports section, when I come in from a long night out.

But it has been a couple of years since I’ve touched her in a way a man touches his wife. The last time we had sex, I stared into her eyes, and her eyes said two words…

“I know.”

The look in her eyes was a storm cloud of shame over my head. It got to the point where I couldn’t even make eye contact.

No, she never whines or fusses. Afterall, she didn’t have to.

She knew she was the one that held all the power.

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:31:00 AM

    ummm... who says you aren't ready

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like this story line. He's an interesting character.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lee,
    You know you can write..so stop all the naysayin. Thanks for the dedication. You know I love this story line and cannot wait to see more. You know you can ALWAYS forward me the entire MS. I won't be mad....LOL!
    the good nurse

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am coming out of lurk city to comment. I like this. I cand wait to read the other stories.

    ReplyDelete
  5. OMG this is such a great story line. The way you got into this man's mind, the way he thinks rationalizing his actions and the misunderstandingmhe has fr the way he claims he loves his wife. Dang, this was good. You gotta continue this one. This was OUTSTANDING! I haven't read any good fiction in a while, you make mewanna get offtrackwith my reading schedule. When we arewegoing to get another little bite of this story line?

    You should be soproud LadyLee, you area great writer.You feelyour characters and it shows in your work. Keep doing your thang!

    ReplyDelete

Slap the *crickets* out the way, kindly step up to the mike, and SAY something!!