PAPA, I LOVE YOU ’¦’¦.
Niama Leslie Williams
Copyright May 2008
1,095 words


why not? :-)


One confession, Papa, and the earth has shattered beneath my feet, shattered and I am falling, stunned, wide awake, astutter, astounded. No one ’“ ever. And now, you. I don’t do Black men. I don’t do old men. I don’t I don’t I don’t ’¦.. I don’t fall in love’”not with men who desire me. And that is why we must say yes to each other, Papa, now I know why the blues singers called their lovers ’śPapa’ť and ’śDaddy.’ť Because I am scared shitless, Papa, scared shitless to take your hand and be loved. Scared of opening my hand mouth heart mouth ’¦.. I am terrified of your loving touch, of moments alone with you in bed because it really will be me entering a world I never knew, never thought I would know,

But I argue for us in that world, Papa, because I want you to know what it is to be FULLY loved, I want to whisper sweet nothings in your ear, I want to delight you, I want to take you in my mouth --- I am good at that, Papa, so I was once told, and I didn’t even love him. I want you to know what it is to be treasured, Papa, body, mind, and soul. I want you to know what it feels like when a woman loves you and it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t cause pain, there’s no retribution or manipulation or price to pay. Just adulation.

Adulation for opening me to myself. I didn’t quite know what you meant when you said that yesterday, or was it the day before, time and fluidity ’¦.. but you see, you’ve handed me a whole world and I am at the center ’¦.. scared little Leslie who thought love was never for her, the gracious gift of God and the garden of hollies has returned to find her self, her young self, budding, budding in the arms of a man who finally gave herself back to her. I didn’t know I was missing. I didn’t know I had given up on myself. I didn’t know that I was really afraid of all that romance I was aching for. The idea of you touching me fills me with the sweetest terror, and like I always have I want to walk toward that of which I am most afraid because the reward lies there, the lesson lies there ’¦.

It is not sin for us, Papa Massey, God wants me to know real love, true love, honest love, earthly love before I venture into Shropshire’s lands again. I must go there knowing what it is to be treasured by a man, held and loved and touched by one who excites me with his mere breath, with his every inhalation. A man who has seen me live at my worst and who has STILL given me back myself. Oh to provide for a wife! I wanted you to have Gloria, I wanted you to have your dream, I had no idea you had to keep yourself from me. You have handed me a whole world, Papa, Lover, and I ’¦.. gasp at the richness, the rich potential of it. I quake like a new bride at the prospect of kissing you, but there is no other way for us, is there? Elaine was jealous, she saw the writing on the wall that my shame and my history and my abuse blinded me to. I could not see it because I had never had a man of my own desire want me back. That was foreign to me as ice. And now to sweat for you and to learn that you, you have held yourself back ’¦..

And I still fear the bumps and bulges and nodules and unattractiveness of my body, but I cannot wait to embrace your fragile frame, to touch it with tenderness.

Oh it is not sin for us, Papa Massey, Papamine, it is not sin, but further healing. If Jim were to walk into my life now, I would probably run, terrified. I need a soft hand, gentle patience, experience and a tough tongue! (bad girl chuckle!)

I don’t know how else to argue for us. I don’t know that I want marriage right now; it is all so new and I don’t want to be tied to Norristown; I want us to escape to Shropshire, I want to show you my home and I still want Jim, I will not, will never lie to you about that.

But you have presented me with a world, Rev. Massey, and I want every piece of it. I want to make a home for you and love you in it, nurture you in it, make you feel the King you always should have been in it.

Bring you your slippers, as my hero Eliza Doolittle decided to do for her man. We’ll have to watch that some evening.

Oh Papa, we must. I need to be indoctrinated in the ways of love, to be taught tenderness and sex and lust and love, and I want to be taught by the kind hand that has already facilitated so much healing. Do not think of me as the devil, please, this desire could not be fiendish or of the beast. We are two walking wounded who have come together, whom God has brought together. We need to breathe freely as we come together; I am not ready for marriage yet. Too frightening a word.

But I trust you to teach me in the ways of love. I trust you with my ’¦. My first embrace, my first kiss. No wonder you ran at the sight of Jim’s picture; no wonder you lied about not loving me that way. And I believed you’”I believed you! See what a novice I am?

I hear you in the shower now and I want to come in and scrub your back. Oh the back scratching we will do! Oh the intimacy we could have. Do not run, do not run from she who wants to give you the kind of love you should have had always, with her intuitive, untutored hand. This is not devil and damnation, it is the kindest gift, it is what God intended all along, it is not fornication’”it is instruction for she so terrified she didn’t see the world of love that always shone in your eyes.

Who was I to know that Nicole was right to be jealous. And that Elaine had the eyes of a wise woman.

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