none of my friends know yet about the strange man and i. only this nosy single mother from work who lives in the same building with him. she saw me scurrying from his apartment one early morning. she's perceptive enough.
on our break the other day, my new confidante claimed that she understood why i'm drawn to the strange man. it's because i'm a goody two-shoes (her word). "and bitches always go for them bad boys," she said. "but i ain't his bitch," i said. "right," she dead panned. "i resent that," i half-jokingly told her. she said "uh, hmm," snapped her fingers, and walked right back to her unit.
then, she turned around and asked me, "you know that he served time, aight?" i nodded. i asked the strange man before about this crudely inked tattoo in his nape. he told me, without a tinge of shame or rancor, that he got it while he was at a juvenile correction facility in upstate new york. he was sixteen. the tattoo says mama. a flaming heart hovers atop the now fading red letters.
last night, my night off, i intimated to the strange man that maybe i could sleep over at his place again. no problem, he said. only that he's going to be home late as one of his work crew was celebrating his birthday.
it was already two in the morning when i hear the click of his key in the lock. i feigned sleeping, bottling up my simmering rage. i heard him tiptoe slickly around the couch. then he bumped into the tv stand. he suppressed a curse. i couldn't help but smile.
after stripping down to just his boxers, he slithered next to me. i could still smell the alcohol in his breath. i should still be inflamed. but i wasn't. i turned around and ran my hand along his cornrows. they felt like damp rosary beads.
