BEAST (18 page)

“Me too.
”
Was it crazy? But having sex made everything so clear. Christopher was everything she needed in a man.
He told her that he’d pick her up at about five and then told her that he loved her.
He felt it and he said it and that was all there was to it. But w
hen she said that she loved him he smiled in disbelief at his fortune. 

Ashleigh
stood there with lights twinkling in her eyes and a smile on her face.
I am loved fo
r who I am and nothing more.

She floated through her home before noticing that
she 
had
messages from both Kendra and Lance. She knew that they were going to have something to say about her not coming home last night. Well she was grown and single! Deciding to take care of them both with one phone call, Ashleigh made a 3-way call.

“Guess who has a boyfriend again.”

“That was fast work.” Kendra commented. “Are you sure you want to take that step, Ash?” Her voice held a touch of concern that surprised
her
. “He’s pretty big. If you break up with him you may have to enter the witness protection services.”

Ashleigh found herself smiling. “Maybe…maybe I won’t ever break up with him.”

“Ashleigh,” Lance said. “You’re not talking about…marriage, are you?
I mean it’s only been one date.
”

“Lance, he told me that he wished his life was a John Hughes film.”

Lance began screaming through the phone line. “Don’t toy with me, woman! You didn’t start the conversation with, ‘Hey do you like John Hughes films?’ Did you?!”

“No, he brought up teen movies first. He told me he was the big quiet guy from that movie My Bodyguard.”

Lance began screaming again and panting ‘Oh my god, Oh my god.’ “Yo
u must marry him. Marry him now!
”

“You two are insane.” Kendra said not appreciating their obvious fixation on teen movies.

~***~

Ashleigh
wore
a pretty dress that was both nice enough to meet parents and attend church, but
was
also complimentary to her newly curvaceous body.

Christopher arrived a few minutes before five and she showed him around her condo. He was thoroughly impressed, complimenting her on her style. Ashleigh thought Christopher looked very sexy in khaki pants and a button down shirt. They spent a few minutes kissing until the bulge in his pants began to grow noticeably and it was either stop now or arrive late for dinner. They decided to stop…for now.

Christopher’s parents lived in Covington Kentucky and he prepared her for a rather large gathering. He had four brothers and sisters but only two lived in Kentucky. One of his brothers had died several years before and there would be a few kids running around. He wanted to prepare her for his father. He’d had
a stroke years
before and it had caused some permanent damage. He warned that he might repeat the same thing over and over or act confused…or he might be perfectly okay.

Ashleigh could tell that he didn’t tell her any of this with any sense of shame and she loved him even more for that. 

He directed her attention to
points of interest as they drove; the High School, his first job, the house where a certain relative lived. She listened intently to every word. He could have been reading the yellow pages and she would have been enthralled. His voice just did it for her. She pictured slipping her hands down his pants as soon as they got back to her house.

They finally pulled up to a small two story house on a street that overlooked a factory on one side an
d a Quickie Mart on the other. She figured that
the people who lived on this street didn’t make a lot of money but all of the homes were well maintained and the yards were kept up nicely.

He pulled in behind a mini-van and gave her a quick wink before rushing around to open her door for her. Several kids were playing stickball in the side yard and came running when they recognized Christopher.

“Uncle Chris!” They yelled, jumping on him. For a minute she worried that some of the bigger ones might hurt him but he didn’t even seem to feel their leaping and bounding bodies. For a moment they ignored her while they tried to bring down their giant uncle.

“Hey guys!
Timeout!”
He bellowed and his voice left no doubt to his seriousness. “I want to introduce y’all to someone. This is Ashleigh. She’s my girlfriend.”

“You
go
tta
girlfriend, Uncle Chris?” A
little girl that appeared no older than four peeked up at him.

He lifted her up like she was a teeny doll, which is what she appeared in his big hands. “Yes I do, Rachel. And you guys have to be on your bes
t behavior around her. Do we have
a deal?” Everyone said, ‘Yes, sir.’ “Tell her hi.”

“Hi, Miss Ashleigh.”
Ashleigh grinned and returned the greeting.

“If you’re good I’ll come out and play touch football with you for a little while after dinner; me against all of y’all.”

“Is Miss Ashleigh going to play?” One of the kids asked.

Her eyes got wide. “I’ll just be a cheerleader.”

Christopher took her hand and led her up the side stairs. He knocked once and entered. A group of women were sitting in the kitchen talking and they all looked at him happily, their curious stares finally resting on her. She gripped his hand and plastered on a nervous smile.

“Hey everyone.”
Christopher pulled her after him as he entered the kitchen where she could smell something good cooking. “This is Ashleigh; my girlfriend.”

You could have heard a pin drop. To Ashleigh it felt like forever but in actuality the quiet lasted just a second or two. A woman was moving forward. She could have been in her early fifties, maybe late forties. She had a huge smile on her face and looked enough like Chris that it left no doubt that it was his mother even though she was a little thing. She gave him a kiss and a hug.

“Hi Mom.”

Mrs. Jameson turned to her next and gave her a hug too. “Now where did you come from?”

Ashleigh wasn’t sure how to answer that question because she wasn’t exactly sure what it meant.

“Mom, Ashleigh comes from my job. She works in my building.”

“Well you sure are a pretty girl. Ashleigh, is it?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Christopher introduced her to the other ladies in the room. There was a sister-in-law, an aunt, his sister Alma, and two cousins. The ladies seemed friendly and they asked her several questions about where she lived and what she did. Alma asked her what she wanted to drink and she asked for
a bottled
water and got a glass of iced water instead.

Christopher took her hand and led her out of that room and into a family room. Several men were sitting around watching ESPN. At least with them, they didn’t come to a complete silence although it was pretty plain that they were surprised to see a woman with Christopher. She hoped the surprise wasn’t due to her being black. She realized that he hadn’t mentioned her coming, or her color.

Ashleigh’s eyes fell on a frail looking man that looked like he was old enough to be Christopher’s grandfather. He was white haired and slouched over with eyes that seemed rheumy and glazed. This had to be Mr. Jameson.

“Hi Daddy.”
Christopher leaned forward and gave his father a hug. The older man looked at him in surprise before smiling.

“Walt? Where you been, son?”

Christopher tried to mask the pain in his face but not before Ashleigh saw it.

“I’m Christopher, Daddy.”

“Christopher? You back home from The Marines?”

“Yes sir. Dad, this is my girlfriend Ashleigh.”

Mr. Jameson turned to her and smiled, offering his hand to shake.
“Nice to meet you Ashleigh.
Y’all sit a spell and have some dinner.”

“Yes, sir.”
Ashleigh responded politely and someone pulled up one of the dining room chairs for her to sit down in. The ladies came in from the kitchen while Christopher introduced her to his brother Butch, an
u
ncle and the husband’s of the two cousin’s that she’d already met.

She wanted to remember their names but knew that wasn’t going to happen. She had to at least remember Butch and Alma since they were Christopher’s siblings.

They sat around and talked for a while and Ashleigh could see the way Christopher relaxed in a way that she’d never seen him relax before.

“You two been together long?” Alma asked.” Butch tried to discreetly scowl at her. But Ashleigh didn’t mind the question that had been directed at her.

“Not long, but I knew him for a while.”

“Okay.” She looked at her younger brother. “Cause he
ain’t never
said nothing about a girlfriend.”

Christopher turned to her from his conversation with the two cousins. “Consider this me telling you about my girlfriend.”

His mother changed the subject and mentioned a family reunion that Uncle Ray wanted to have. Dinner was served a few minutes later and Ashleigh offered to help but the aunt told her to relax and that she was company.

Dinner was a
hodge
podge
but everything looked good. There was fried corn, meatloaf, coleslaw and potato salad, cottage cheese, canned pears and green peas. Alma
had
burned the dinner rolls as she was
too
busy slyly watching Ashleigh.

The kids sat at a card table and it brought a smile to her face as she remembered being relegated to the kids table. Ashleigh saw that Mrs. Jameson had to feed Mr. Jameson. His hands didn’t seem to cooperate. Although he did make every attempt to feed himself it only resulted in green peas rolling around on the table and meatloaf being dropped into his lap.

Christopher engaged his father in casual conversation about the game that had just been on. His father favored a team that hadn’t been playing.

Mr. Jameson looked at Ashleigh curiously. “Now who is this?”

“This is Ashleigh. She’s my girlfriend.”

“Honey, that’s Christopher’s girlfriend, Ashleigh.” Mrs. Jameson explained distinctly while wiping his lips with a napkin.

“Do I know you?” He asked in confusion.

Ashleigh swallowed a bite of meat loaf. “We just met, Mr. Jameson.”

His eyes cleared and he smiled again. “I remember. You’re one of them colored kids that lived down at the bottom of the hill.”

Everyone at the table grew quiet, even the kids at the card cable looked on in surprise.

“Well,” Ashleigh cleared her throat, “I don’t belong to that particular colored family. I belong to a different one. We didn’t live on the mountain but in Cincinnati.”

“
Ohhhh
, okay.” he said. “But they were a good lot. The father died so it’s a good thing that their not your kin.” He tried to spoon an entire pear wedge into his mouth and it landed in his lap with a plop. Mrs. Jameson grabbed it and then peaked up at Ashleigh and mouthed, ‘thank you.’

Ashleigh glanced at Christopher whose face had gone pale.

After dinner there was brownie cake and ice cream. Ashleigh passed and Alma frowned. “You don’t like cake and ice cream?”

Ashleigh didn’t immediately
answer,
surprised by the question although it wasn’t delivered in a bad way—it was just the question itself.