“I miss you.” I typed in a text message to Steve.
Although it was mid-week and his trip down to Miami wasn’t planned for another week, I sent him the message to let him know that I was thinking of him.
After another eye opening Human Sexuality class, I flopped down into the drivers seat of my car and turned the ignition. My phone chimed, alerting me to a text message.
“10pm. American Airlines. Steve.”
I looked at the clock on my dash. Wow. He’s coming! Since it was already 9:30, I drove over to the airport in record time and he was just walking out of the sliding doors as I pulled up.
“Hey Big Head!” I greeted him.
“Hey Baby Girl!” he said and gave me a big hug.
“You are too cute! Thanks for coming to see me. Have you eaten yet?”
“No, what do you want to pick up?”
“I know just the place, it’s up north though so get in and let me tell you all about class while we drive.”
As I drove us up north to pick up the food I explained to Steve what we had just discussed in class.
“So tonight’s class was about sexual abuse. When I saw it on the syllabus I didn’t know if I could handle being there but I told myself that I would have to deal with clients who have been abused so I have to get over my own hang-ups about my past.”
Steve remained quiet as I continued to chatter.
“We talked about a case where a young girl admitted that her stepfather had touched her innappropriately,”I said, then I sighed and shook off my own baggage.
“Well, since we’re family therapists, we don’t have to deal with the how’s of what happened and we don’t ask the client to relive their pain, we focus on helping the family to get themselves in order after such an incident. So we decided that in this case, we should counsel the entire family. My professor said that if an abuser wants to heal the family relationship after abuse, then the abuser must apologize to the victim. This takes away the victim’s feeling of helplessness and validates her belief that she is important and her feelings are important.”
“Really? You mean, there’s hope for a woman who has been abused? I always thought they never get over it and end up being hoes for the rest of their lives.”
I shook my head. “Yeah, that happens most of the time, but I wouldn’t call it being ‘hoeish’ I’d call it acting out sexually. When a sexual abuse victim doesn’t heal from their pain, they usually lose their sense of self worth and allow their bodies to be used because that feeling of being used when they were younger stays with them and it’s hard to shake.”
We were quiet for the rest of the trip up 27th avenue. I was lost in my own thoughts about the lesson I had learned. When my professor showed the patterns associated with sexual abuse victims, I was dumbfounded to read that every single attribute described my sexual behavior and outlook on relationships.
“Wait in the car and I’ll get the food,” I said to Steve.
“Nah man. This doesn’t look too safe.”
I shook my head as he followed me inside.
“What are you ordering?” Steve asked me.
“Fried conch and shrimp rice! Have you had it before?”
“Conch? Nah…”
“You’re gonna love it!”
After our food was prepared and boxed we took the 826 back to 95South and got off on 62nd Street. We walked to the elevator and I watched him as he juggled his bags. He never lets me carry anything so I didn’t even offer this time.
Once we were settled inside we gobbled up the food and sat down on the living room floor to play tunk.
I won the first game but he won the second one and we were both talking trash the entire time. I took a minute to give him a good once-over. His t-shirt and basketball shorts. His white socks. His glasses that kept sliding down the bridge of his nose, causing him to have to push them back up every so often.
I laughed.
“What are you laughing at?” he asked me.
“You. You’re so cute.”
“Yeah righhht.”
“Steve…I wanted to say I’m sorry for calling you gay that time.”
“What time?”
“Remember the first time we came up here and I wanted to do it and you didn’t and I called you gay?”
“Oh yea..You almost got a beat down,” he laughed.
“No, I’m serious. I was talking to my therapist and he said that when I do that I’m being manipulative and that’s not what I want to be. I shouldn’t have pressured you like that, so I’m sorry.”
Steve paused, dropped his hand of cards and stared at me.
“I love you,” he said calmly.
“Huh?”
“I do.”
“Aww Steve you are crazy!”
“Yeah, I am. And I’m acting like a girl right now, but I don’t really care.” He then grabbed me by the arms and pulled me close to him. I rested my head on his chest as he rubbed my head and neck and shoulders with his big hands.
“Man Steve this is unreal to me,” I whispered. “It hasn’t even been 6 full months since we met and everytime I see you I feel like I’m floating.”
“Why are you always counting the time we’ve spent together? None of that matters anyway,” Steve said with a slight hint of an attitude. “But yeah…I saw my Mom today. We had lunch in the West Village. I was telling her about you and she asked me when we were going to get married.”
I jumped up and pushed him in the chest. “Boy! What did you tell her?”
“I told her how I feel about you. I told her that I love you.”
“Dude you are sooo gay!”
“Whatever, man…” Steve said and pulled me back against him. “You know you been talking to your girls about marrying me. Has Anna helped you pick out your wedding dress yet? I know how ya’ll are.”
“Naw..Actually we haven’t. Well, Tamara did ask me if I could see myself marrying you and I told her I hadn’t thought about it.”
“You haven’t?” Steve asked, peering down at me over the top of his glasses. “I thought that was every girl’s dream- to wear the white dress-have all of her friends standing by her- cut the cake- all that jazz.”
“I think it probably is MOST girl’s dream, but I never allowed myself to think about any of that before. I don’t know..I’m not typical in that way I guess. I never fantasize about a wedding.”
“Never?”
“Well, I did before. Back when I was in the church. It’s like all the single women in church do is talk about becoming a wife and I guess it rubbed off on me. But I don’t want to be like that anymore. Marriage is not the key to life. It’s not when life begins. I think they think like that because the church teaches all that sin stuff about pre-marital secks. I don’t believe in that anymore. I feel like marriage is a socially constructed idea and it’s not a case of ‘I please God if I marry’ Not to me anyway.”
“So you’re gonna stay single for the rest of your life?”
I shrugged. “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying..I like how things are between us and I don’t need a ring for me to feel like you care about me. I already know you do. We can stay like this for a long time and I wouldn’t mind.”
Steve raised his eyebrow. “What if I said that I wanted to wait until I had a wife before I had secks again?”
I looked at him like he was crazy. “Why would you say something crazy like that?”
“Tee. I’m not going to go through what I went through with that chick again. I have to be careful.”
“Man, I feel you. I’m just sayin…Don’t you think there should be another reason to get married besides ‘God won’t bless me if I don’t’ or ‘People are gonna call me a sinner if I don’t’? I’m just not under that fear anymore so…it’s not any pressure in my life for that.”
“Well, what is a good reason to get married then?”
“I don’t know, Steve.”
“Well, I look at marriage like this. When you love someone, and I don’t mean love them like you get butterflies when you see them, I mean love them like your life isn’t as enjoyable when they aren’t with you, then you should get married. When I get married, it’ll be because I want to be there to take care of my wife, to have a family with her, to be the MAN of the house and create the best life for us and our kids.”
He stops and kisses my neck, trailing tiny kisses down to my arms and fingers.
“Don’t you want to be taken care of?” he asks softly.
“Hell yeah!” I reply flippantly.
“Are you gonna let me take care of you?”
“Steve! Stop trippin!” I stand up and march into the bedroom doorway. “Let’s go to bed. I’m tired!”
I see him shake his head and slowly rise from the living room floor with a tired look on his face.
I don’t know why he’s rushing things. I like things the way they are.