Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Loving Contrasts - Chapter 4.1



The next day, Inaya did the same thing she’d done every weekday for years – she listened to her favorite radio show as she braved the morning traffic. Her meeting with Chandler and her heightened attraction to him hadn’t changed that. She wouldn’t allow it to.
Even though she was never going to date him, she would not deny herself the pleasure of his deep baritone. It soothed her somehow. It also excited her. Very much.
Even so, he’s never going to be my man, Inaya thought decisively. Besides, where would we date? Certainly not in this town.   
Montrose, for all of its leaps and bounds in becoming a thriving metropolis of racial equality in business and community affairs, still wasn’t the most tolerant of places to live in when it came to interracial relationships.
Just two years ago, a qualified white mayoral candidate named Julian Heyward lost the race big time when it was discovered that he fathered a child out of wedlock during his college years. Although this was not uncommon in today’s society, his opponents made it seem so even though the man was taking excellent care of his son and was reputed to be a good father, despite the fact that he hadn’t married the mother of that child.
Fortunately, the voting public didn’t wholeheartedly buy into the negativity. Many still gave Mr. Heyward and his wife their support…until photos of the mixed child and his African-American mother surfaced three days before the polls opened. It was a sad day when the final tally was in and Mr. Heyward had only accumulated thirty-five percent of the vote. A week earlier he had a favorable sixty percent of the city behind him. It seems that people could practice more tolerance when racial/interracial issues remained faceless and were kept in the background.
I have enough problems. Don’t need any more, Inaya thought resolutely, switching to a faster lane.
The sky was getting darker instead of lighter in that eight o’clock hour. She hoped the brewing storm wouldn’t unleash its fury before she made it inside her downtown office. She’d forgotten her umbrella this morning in her busyness of loading fresh baked goods into her car.
Last night she baked banana oatmeal muffins and a lemon curd coffee cake. It had been her way of working off the sexual tension that Chandler incited within her body yesterday.
“This next song goes out to the lady whose name means Providence in Swahili,” Chandler said, immediately capturing Inaya’s attention.
He’s talking about me. She smiled, starting to feel hot all over again.
“Special lady, yesterday was the best Valentine’s I’ve had in a long time. Thanks for brightening my day. Perhaps you’d like to brighten one of my nights, too, by agreeing to go on a date with me. You have all of my numbers, so call a brotha and let him know something, a’ight? Thanks in advance, sweetness.” Then the stirring sounds of Luther Vandross’ Here & Now began to strum in the background as he proceeded to play her favorite song.
          At that unexpected request and those scrumptious endearments, Inaya almost forgot to make the right turn into her workplace parking lot. She was shocked, flattered, and undeniably turned on. Her fingertips tingled with delight. Desire jumped in her veins like grasshoppers.
“Call a brotha,” Inaya recited Chandler’s words as images of his tasty long frame paraded across her mind. “I wish you were a brotha.
Yet even if he was black, she still wouldn’t call him. Inaya’s body may be hankering for sex now that he’d awakened the sleeping giant of desire within her, but she wasn’t emotionally willing to date anyone. Nor did she want to be in a relationship. Plus she never ever called a guy first. She wasn’t about to start now. 

© 2014 by Suprina Frazier

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