The Mare

Velvet

The tree was still beautiful and they still had my favorite striped glass ball. But I kept thinking of that night we went to the party and Paul disappeared with that red-haired woman. I didn’t know if everything was the same with them or if they were pretending, and so nothing seemed the same to me. So I pretended and waited until I could walk to the barn. Even that wasn’t the same since Fiery Girl wasn’t there anymore, but still I walked over in the cold, steam coming out my mouth like I was a horse. Half the sky was full of white clouds; the other half was black with a lot of stars. There was ice in the paddock where I first rode.

It ain’t what it was with Shawn. You know that.

The horses moved and breathed when they heard me, but I didn’t hear them talk. I realized I hadn’t heard them talk for a long time. Maybe because I wasn’t a kid anymore? I went to Joker because I hadn’t seen him since the day me and Fiery Girl rode past. He was glad to see me but too nervous to pet; he kept moving around and then he sneezed in my eye. It made me almost laugh, but I wanted to touch somebody, so I looked for Reesa, my first horse. She was lying down and I wanted to curl up against her, even though it’s not safe. But I couldn’t because she got up when I opened her stall. She looked at me with such soft eyes and stood quiet and let me get warm on her. I remembered how it felt that first time. I felt love for her. I rubbed her and scratched her back where she liked it and looked out her window at the night. It started snowing.

You know I have love for you. You love me?

It was late when he finally came. The kids, Rochelle and Jason, were asleep. He came in looking angry, then I realized, no, scared. Something happened, but he wouldn’t say what it was, said I shouldn’t know. He kept walking around. He said they wouldn’t come here because nobody knew about here. They’d go to Brianna’s place; he needed to stay with me. Did I know when Kristal would come back? I didn’t know exactly, but I knew it would be late, he could stay until then. Jason heard us, I guess, because he came in the room holding his little three-year-old dick and looking sleepy-bug-eyed at Dominic until I kissed him and put him back in bed. When I came back in the living room, Dominic had calmed himself down. He sat close to me on the couch, but he didn’t look at me; he texted. I could smell him, and the smell of him scared me and I didn’t know why. I tried to bring back the warm feeling of when he crouched down with his legs open, but this was not like that. His sideways face was hard, and his hands didn’t care about anything but texting. He worked his phone. I didn’t move, but still I went toward him in waves, hurting to touch him. He closed the phone and put it on the table. He looked at me; he started to talk, then he stopped. His eyes saw my feeling, and I let him see it all the way. He said he had to do something and he picked up his phone again. He opened it and stared at it. He put it down and looked at me. He touched my face with his hand. I had words I couldn’t say, but he heard and answered by kissing my mouth — quick, like he meant to move away. But he didn’t. For a second he pulled back and I felt him soft, waiting like a horse, waiting for me to tell him which way to move. Like a horse, he heard my answer before I knew I gave it, and we kissed for real, and he made these noises, little noises that said Please, please let me close, please let me inside, and because the noises were so baby, I touched the back of his head like to protect him. Next thing I knew, he kneeled and pushed my legs apart, and put his hands and head on my breast. I pulled my shirt up and he touched them and kissed them. It felt so good I got scared and my body trembled. He rose up and kissed my face and said, “Don’t be scared. I ain’t gonna hurt you, boo. We ain’t gonna do it all, I can’t, I’m with Brianna.”

“If you with her, why you with me like this? Why you callin’ me ‘boo’?”

“I don’t know, I shouldn’t. But I need to touch you. I wanna feel you next to me. We can at least do that, right? You know I have love for you. You love me?”

I said yes by kissing, and we went in the next room, where there was a bed. We took off our shirts and I saw words on his chest tattooed in BIG mad-beautiful letters, like: You humbled my adversaries and I destroyed my foes and 18:39. It was so wicked serious I almost put my shirt back on. I said, “Is that, like…from the Bible?” “It’s from a letter my uncle wrote me,” he said. “From prison. But yeah, he got it from the Bible.” “You believe in that?” I asked. He said, “Not in a bible-ass way. I ain’t even read it mostly. But this I like. And my uncle, he like a father to me.” I touched his chest with my hand and kissed it. I took off my bra and we pressed hearts together. We talked about his uncle and about Shawn and how my grandfather talked to me, and what happened that night after I went home. About his sister and how he got split up from her when his mom moved in with this boss up in Washington Heights. Also about Fiery Girl; the time I talked to her and she talked back to me and I cleaned her dirty stall. He told me about how he used to think he could be an actor. He said he acted at this charter school he used to be at before he got kicked out for assaulting a teacher; they put on plays and he was Romeo in one of them. I laughed. I said, “You mean like wherefore art thou?” and he said, “Yeah, you don’t believe me?” I said, “No!” just to be that way, and he promised the next time he saw me he’d show me the picture of it that his teacher took.

And the whole time we were talking, we were touching everything. I took off everything except my panties and he touched everything until it was like a dream. He unzipped his pants and I saw him. There was nothing ugly or crocodile — no. Because it was him, even more than his face, and I kissed it like it was his face. I heard him laugh very soft and I looked up. Was kissing it stupid? But I saw his eyes soft and his lips smiling, and I smiled too. He said, “Go on, beauty, don’t be afraid. It ain’t what it was with Shawn. You know that. Open your mouth, love me. Show me love.”

Reesa lay down again, curled with her nose down almost in her bedding. I went and sat against her body for heat. Out the window, the snow was like the beginning of a old black-and-white movie where they show the outside of the house in the snow and then the inside where everybody’s living the story. I took out my phone and looked. Nothing.