It's eleven o'clock at night and I'm lying in bed next to my boyfriend Mitchell Voltaire. Watching him sleep. When he's awake, he's really something. Six feet two inches tall and two hundred and forty pounds of hard-bodied black man. A force to be reckoned with. He's come through for Southeastern Massachusetts University's football team time and again as they played against their fiercest rivals on the gridiron. Asleep, though. He's something else. He looks vulnerable, and beautiful. There he is, the love of my life.
There, I said it. My name is Wendy Monpoint. A Haitian-American Amazon who stands five feet eleven inches tall when barefoot. I'm quite curvy, even voluptuous, and damn proud of it. I've got face. I've got chest. And I've got ass. I'm a real woman, and damn proud of it. My skin is dark brown, and I've recently cut my hair in the style Halle Berry had in the X-Men movies. Mine isn't dyed, though. If you can't handle a strong black woman who stands up for herself and loves her man, then this story isn't for you. I'm on an academic scholarship at Southeastern Massachusetts University. I was there when it was still a women's college. Now it's changed. So much has changed. Including me. I fell in love with a man. And tonight I've done some terrible things to protect him...from himself.
Something came for him in the mail earlier. Something which shocked me to my core. A membership card from the Bisexual People of Color Network. B.P.C.N. The envelope had been rerouted from the Randolph post office. Apparently, someone forgot to go pick it up. I checked them out online. What I found amazed me. They were an organization made up of bisexual men and bisexual women from New England. Mostly Blacks and Latinos, with a few Asians and Middle-Easterners. Wow. My boyfriend Mitchell...one of them.
It is not that big a shock. Doesn't bother me. I'm not mad. I just wish he'd trusted me enough to tell me he's bisexual, though. Looking back, I have seen it coming. I met Mitchell during Freshman Orientation Day at SMU in August of 2007. He's always been such a loud, outspoken and manly guy. I noticed that about him right away. It made him stand out. He was an incoming freshman, a recent graduate of Brockton Community High School. I was a sophomore at the time, and I worked for the Admissions Office. It was my duty to show this new batch of freshmen the campus. I noticed that there were a lot of men in this batch. Lots of young black men. And to be honest, I wasn't sure how I felt about that.
When I started college back in 2006, Southeastern Massachusetts University was known as Southeastern Massachusetts College. It was one of a few all-female Catholic schools left in New England. I chose SMC over Wellesley College because lots of black and Hispanic women who chose single-sex education went there. I'd already gone to an all-white and all-female private school. I didn't want a repeat of the experience. I needed diversity where I lived, thank you very much. However, turning my all-female school suddenly coed wasn't my idea of diversity. That was pushing it a bit too far.
While I gave them the tour, one of the young men kept asking a lot of pointed questions. When I showed them the Women's Center, he asked whether there was also a Men's Center. Truth be told, there was one in the works as mandated by the school's new president, Dr. Joanna Bartleby, but I didn't need to be reminded of it. It was one of those changes on campus which I didn't like very much. The campus was coed. Did the administration have to rub it in my face? My eyes narrowed to slits and zeroed in on the smirking guy who was being a smart ass. It was none other than Mitchell, the big and tall black guy from Brockton.
I told him that the school didn't feel a Men's Center was necessary at the moment, but in future time one might be added if students felt the need for it. He crossed his arms and stared pointedly at me, saying this was gender-based discrimination. The other guys in the group smirked. Some of the young women nodded, while a few rolled their eyes. I gave Mitchell an icy glare, then continued with the tour. Yeah, even back then he had a habit of getting under my skin. Little did I know that our fates were entwined.
I finished the tour, then went back to my dorm. I lived in Madeline Hall, the last all-female dorm on campus. It housed three hundred occupants. The other eight dorms buildings, from my beloved Stetson Hall to the Baxter Esplanade had all gone coed. Here and there, young men were moving their stuff into the dorms as their doting moms and dads looked on. A few female students who had been around as long as I have watched them, perplexed and stunned. It was easy for me to see which gals were new to the campus, and which ones weren't. The new ones just went about their business, sometimes openly flirting with the young men while the young women who were at the school before it became guy-land kept staring at them. The guys didn't pick up on it.
Yeah, this was promising to be a terrific school year. I was the captain of the Women's Rugby team and true to form, I went to practice with my teammates. Coach Jocelyn Stony, a tall, sturdy redhead in her mid-forties told us that we would have to share the stadium with the incoming football team. We had a new practice schedule. I couldn't believe this shit! The women's rugby team of Southeastern Massachusetts University was one of the oldest in the NCAA. We'd been around since 1973. And now these jocks who had come from Lord-knew-where had been allowed to cut in on our practice time? Hell no! I stormed into athletic director Mariah Smith's office, launching vigorous protests. She told me that there was nothing she could do.