There was a time when Dwayne had seemed particularly ardent, poking me three times—twice in my pussy and once in my mouth—with a passion even beyond the norm. In spite of the chilly weather outside, we were drenched in sweat, lying flat on our backs and staring unseeing at the ceiling. After catching my breath, I sidled over to him and held his arm between my breasts; his hand was in the general vicinity of my sex, but he didn't make any attempt to stimulate me further. I was glad of that—I'd already had four climaxes of my own—because I had things to discuss. Well, one thing in particular.
Dwayne's eyes were now closed, and I got even closer to him and whispered in his ear: "Dwayne, can we think about getting married?"
It seemed to me that that question was innocuous enough. I mean, I didn't come out and say, "Goddammit, Dwayne, you marry me this instant or else!" I was just suggesting that we
think
about the possibility—maybe yes, maybe no. We'd been together for four months—four of the most physically and emotionally intense months of my whole life. I can't speak definitively for Dwayne, but I like to think he'd not had a relationship like this either. So what was the harm in just tossing around the possibility of a (more or less) permanent union?
His eyes popped open, suddenly filled with fear. It was as if he had sensed the presence of a serial killer in the house. His mouth opened, but no words came out; instead, a strange sort of choking sound emerged from deep in his throat. I had no idea what that meant, but it wasn't a good sign.
"Dwayne, come on," I whined. "Can't we just talk about this? You're not going to tell me the thought has never crossed your mind."
I now began to sense that the thought had in fact never crossed his mind, and my heart sank even further.
"Dwayne?" I said softly. "Don't you have anything to say?"
After what seemed like an infinity of silence, he finally said: "It wouldn't be right."
I confess that struck me as an odd way of putting it. He could have said, "No, it's not a good idea"—or, more harshly, "No, I don't want to." But he seemed to be suggesting that there was some sort of moral unsoundness in what I was proposing.
"Dwayne, why not? Don't you love me?"
He had in fact been saying "I love you" for a few weeks, many weeks after I'd first said it (and kept saying it over and over to him). Usually, however, whenever I said "I love you, Dwayne," he'd come back with the lame "Me too." I took that as just the standard male inability to express emotions, but at least it was something.
Now I began to wonder if there were limitations to his feelings for me. I couldn't believe he wanted me just for sex; he could have had any woman for that purpose, and he clearly enjoyed my company and had formed an emotional bond with me. But what was the extent of that bond? How far did it go? And was there something about the prospect of marrying me that somehow violated his sense of decorum?
There was, of course, one thought I refused even to contemplate:
It's surely not because I'm a white woman, is it?
Dwayne's features twisted in obvious pain. He managed to say, "'Course I love you, Stef." He seemed on the brink of saying more, but somehow couldn't get it out.
"Then why—?" I began.
He cut me off: "Stef, we don't live in the same world."
"What on earth do you mean?" I said, baffled.
He now turned his body on its side to face me, taking my shoulders in his hands. "Stef, I don't belong in your world. You live in a world where people drink wine and talk about politics and art and get fancy degrees and live in fancy houses and go to the opera and the symphony and do all that kind of stuff. I live in a world where people drink beer and talk about sports and have babies and try to figure out where the grocery money is going to come from. Our worlds don't mix together."
That was probably the longest single utterance he had ever spoken to me, and every sentence was like a knife thrust into my abdomen. He wasn't quite coming out and saying,
I am a black person and you are a white person,
but the implication was there. Maybe he was talking more about cultural than racial differences, but even that was bad enough.
"Dwayne," I said, tears filling my eyes, "when two people get together and fall in love, they're supposed to live in each other's worlds. Your world becomes mine, and my world becomes yours. I won't say that there's going to be a perfect mix, but both of us have to make the effort. I think I've tried to make the effort; I'm not so sure about you. You don't have to feel inferior to my family or my friends or my house or my salary; you've accomplished a lot on your own and have everything to be proud of. Your family is a lot more loving and tightly knit than mine is, but that doesn't mean that my family hasn't embraced you or hoped that we can be together always.
"And if it's babies you want, well, I'll be proud to have them with you."
I meant every word I said, even about the babies. But he just shook his head as if I was proposing to fly to the moon in a kite.
"It won't work, Stef," he said lugubriously.
"Tell me why not?" I said, getting confrontational. "Anyway, what does it matter if our 'worlds' don't mix very well? Isn't our love for each other the most important thing?"
He almost sneered at me. "That only works in books."
Now I was getting angry. "Don't you have any faith? Faith in
us?
Doesn't our love count for anything? Or do you just think I'm a reasonably good lay?"
