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“Yes…but then sometimes it has to be.”
A look of sadness crossed her face. “Of course, whenever I read about love, it always seems so...so brief. Like it can never last.”
“It seems that way sometimes,” I said.
We heard a hoot owl in the distance. “I should get back,” she said. I could hear the hesitation in her voice.
I reached for her hand as she rose from the chair. “Not yet. Just a few minutes more.”
“It’s late...mama will worry.”
“I know,” I said taking her face in my hands. “But...”
I held her close and before I knew it, I was kissing her. Our lips met and for the first time, I learned the true meaning of desire. Her lips tasted like fresh strawberries and mint and I found myself melting in the taste of them. When I opened her mouth with my tongue, she stopped and gave me a dazed look. For a minute I thought she was going to push me way. Instead, she returned the kiss and begin tasting me as I had her. We couldn’t stop and for a moment there was no time, nothing but the stillness of the night embracing us in the small cabin. Something powerful had shifted and we both felt it. I didn’t understand it nor could I explain it. All I knew was I had to give into it.
I pulled her closer towards me. I wanted more. Without thinking, I lifted the folds of her long dress and began caressing her legs. The warmth from her body was electric and before I knew it, I was searching for the delicate part inside her thighs. She spread her legs and I gently rubbed the outside of her womanhood and found my way inside. She was so warm, so moist. Her mouth parted and I kissed her again. She was getting wetter with each stroke and I wanted to know what she tasted like. I had to have more. Jeyne’s head was thrown back in ecstasy and I was becoming more and more excited by her arousal.
Suddenly, I was on my knees tasting her sweetness over and over again until she began to moan, her grip on my shoulders tightening until it was clear something momentous was happening. My mouth was drenched with her, and then it came. A sharp cry from deep within her throat covered the landscape and her body shook uncontrollably. She held onto me for several minutes until the tremors subsided into small shivers. I laid my head in her lap and held onto her. Never before had I experienced anything so phenomenal and wondrous. Our lips met again, and this time the kiss was even deeper than before. We had discovered ourselves in each other.
I closed my eyes and tried hard to keep my emotions under control. Jeyne bent down and kissed me again. We held each other for what seemed like an eternity before she silently pulled away and walked out the cabin door. I could do nothing but sit there while my soul ached with desire. As a warm sensation traveled the length of my body, I leaned against the wall of the cabin barely able to move.
Chapter Thirteen
The more time I spent with Jeyne, the less time I wanted to spend with anyone else. Another summer had passed, and we were falling deeper and deeper in love. Yet no one had to tell us that our relationship was forbidden, that we were no longer those innocent children who had once played in the fields together.
Of course, it is hard to say when it begins, the invisible line wedged in between the slaves and the whites once the “delicate” age has been reached. But once the line appears, it comes suddenly, and in sharp focus and any closeness or familiarity you once had must be severed, according to the rules established long before one is born. Such was the peculiarity of slavery.
Yet, in my mind, Jeyne was not a slave. She was only two years younger, my friend, the one with whom I shared my private thoughts, joys and pains. I suppose for those who didn’t understand our feelings, it was unthinkable to see Jeyne as anything more than our family’s slave, a beast to be worked until she died. But I could not see her that way. She was someone I loved.
And because of our relationship, my sensitivity and awareness of life began to increase. I was becoming more impatient with the rigors of plantation life, school and the frivolous banter of my friends. In all of them was a need to prove themselves, something they often did it at the expense of others. Their false sense of entitlement made them blind to what it really took be a man. Slipping on the cloak of adulthood was more complex than having money and an Ivy League education.
Even I, in what I thought was wisdom, came to realize later that the rise and fall to manhood was often a fragile and delicate road, one that eventually led, if one was lucky, to enlightenment. And with Jeyne, I always experienced something more. She helped me see life from different perspectives and taught me to take nothing for granted. Her constant presence challenged me to be better, and I welcomed it even as I sometimes resisted it.
Yet, to love her also meant further concealment and duplicity. Not that I minded for myself – I could live with what was, after all, a form of subjugation. But for Jeyne, outside of our plantation, it literally meant life or death. These dangers and others like them made me incredibly alert to secret conversations and side glances. I never let my guard down. The only person I could truly confide in was Jeyne and she, in me, a dependency which only caused our feelings to deepen.
It was a hot and sultry evening as Jeyne and I lay under our favorite willow tree far away from the prying eyes of the main house. This was one of our secret hideaways, a private place where we could laugh and talk and be ourselves. Lizzie kept a close watch on Jeyne, but we had become skilled at timing our secret dates.
The humid air clung to our already hot bodies but the feel of Jeyne’s bare arms and legs next to mine was heavenly. I looked down at her face and thought,God, she’s beautiful.I inhaled her lavender scent and ran my fingers through her long hair and asked her if she loved me.
“You only asked me that an hour ago,” she said playfully.
“I like hearing it.”
“And you always will.”
“Always? Even after we’re married?” I said caressing her face.
“Married?” she exclaimed. “When? We…” Her sudden joy turned to what looked like pain. She sat up and leaned back against the tree. She buried her head in her hands and wouldn’t look at me even as I tried to comfort her. Finally, she uncovered her face and revealed silent, but painful tears.
“This is the part I hate,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “The future. Does it even exist for us?”
My heart started to pound. “Of course it does. We’re in love.”
“Have you forgotten that I’m a slave, Thomas? Your father’s slave?”
“No, listen, I’ve been thinking about it,” I said as I took her hand. “We have to leave here…leave and go to the North.”
Her eyes went wide with fear. “We can’t do that.”
