The Professor

Steven and I have been friends for 47 years. I have been after him for several years to write our story from his point of view. Of course he joked, "Oh you mean from an old white guy's point of view?" I always laugh at his jokes because inside his jokes are those little grains of truth that make you uncomfortable. I told him no, because black women want to know that we're attractive to all men not just black men but others need to hear that the 1960s weren't always about hate, marches and animas between races. I reminded him that he changed my life and made me see far more than my academic credentials, as he calls them my 'bona fides', would ever permit me to see. I wasn't supposed to be interested in a white man. Damn that cultural norm. I was told to date who I wanted but I'd better not bring home blue eyes. Yes he's got blue eyes and yes I took him home to meet momma and daddy and yes things went about as badly as you can imagine. He looked at me and asked, "Is this that cultural norm to which you always refer in your sociological studies?" He pulled no punches.

Of course I've read all that he's written before it gets put on here and afterwards just to see what folk think about this sweet man's point of view. I laughed when I read the 'corny' remarks and thought he's writing in the vernacular replete with the customs, mores and the culture in which we lived. He came from a lily-white world -- I came from the colored world or Negro world but I stood between the white and colored world as a very young PhD sociologist at a very large, predominantly white Texas university. Steven was from a 'Leave-it-to-Beaver'-world and I was from the world of duplicity and double-dealing of men drinking, fighting and killing and no one from the white cops on down caring who got killed in 'nigger-town'. Steven isn't naïve he expects a lot of himself and of everyone else. He's real uncomfortable when I use the N-word but it's what I grew up with. He expects and believes that we can live peacefully and truthfully -- he's a hopeful, sweet man who never lost his boyish charm or demeanor. Me I got edgier and a bit more jaded. The 60s and 70s made me that way.

Steven was and is polite to a fault but tough as a railroad spike. When he was standing at my office door allowing me to be 'stupid and loud', I thought I had pissed myself my panties were so wet. He's a damn fine looking man even today but I'm getting ahead of myself. I first thought that he was one of those white frat boys trying to get a 'crib' class to keep up the GPA for his partying. He looked the part and they're so easy to eviscerate. I made a huge mistake. I was the one who got eviscerated and I found myself chasing his fine ass down the slick concrete corridor wearing four inch heels. When he stopped and turned around to face me, after I hollered to him two or three times, he had a look on his face that said, "Don't fuck with me." I was almost in tears -- I had never apologized to a white boy and yet here I was begging him to forgive me. He did too! He let my nasty-ass remarks to him roll off his back like ever so much water off a duck's back.

I watched a few folk try him over the years and it was entertaining -- fact is I'd pay money to watch that. His daddy would say that messing with Steven was like pissing against the wind -- you're gonna wind up wearing it and tasting it. Anyway after I chased Steven down, I went back to my office, locked the door, sat down in my chair and had a good ol' cry - then I called the registrar, I wanted to find out about him. I did too. He was smart as hell and hard working which is what he told me standing there when he said he didn't have time to waste on my bullshit. He uses an expression that my daddy used, "Don't burn daylight -- time's awastin'." I left my office a few minutes early and ran into my partner in crime in the department, Evie. She wondered why I was burning stockings trying to leave. I couldn't even explain it to her I told her I'd call her and her words were simple, "Are you finally getting laid girl?" She cackled and I walked off.

When I saw him in the faculty parking lot I was just making the turn toward the exit in my red 1961 TR-3. Over the next few years Steven and I would drive to the beach in that car with the top down -- him driving with me trying to wrangle his dick out of his pants -- but that's just me always trying to get a little more of him when I could. I watched him while he was mowing my yard, as he called it. There's something about a hard-bodied man sweating and working that just...well...it does that to me. He didn't wear any stinky cologne or as he called it boy perfume. He never stopped working until that job was done. I don't know how he took that damned South Texas heat. When he sat down on the porch steps wiping his face dry I thought I would faint. I desperately wanted to take that man to bed. He didn't have those big-ass bulgy muscles -- he had race horse muscles -- like a well-trained thoroughbred. He was that too. He moved like he knew his way around hard work and had no fear of it. We walked around the porch and we talked about the work that had to get done on the yard. He walked softly like a tiger stalking his prey. I finally got him to sit on the swing and drink some unsweetened tea with me.

I listened to him answer my questions. He was so well-read and so literate I forgot who I was talking to. He let me finish my point and never argued with me he would say, "I look at it this way..." He'd explain his point and move on. I tried to pick a fight with him on a few really controversial topics and he just smiled and let me spin out of control without the least concern that we didn't agree. I quit trying to pick a fight -- that wouldn't work so I kissed him -- that worked cause when he kissed me back it was like flipping a light switch on. I was turned on and it was over for me. He could have robbed me blind and I wouldn't have cared -- damn those kisses anyway... Steven is sexy and doesn't know it -- doesn't seem to care who thinks he is, until he told me, "Lissia no one ever told me I was sexy except for you -- I like it that way, that you think I'm sexy." It was like he was embarrassed for me to say out loud that he was sexy.

That Friday evening when he finally put his tools and things in the trunk of his car and went back to the University to write the final draft for a paper I hated to see him leave. I really wanted to see those brake lights come on and him turn around bringing his fine white ass back to my bed. I could tell he was thinking about it -- he was driving so slowly -- bless his heart. I thought maybe he'd call me from school but he didn't. I changed the sheets and went to bed very satisfied but really wanting some more of his sweet, hard dick. The phone rang the next morning and it scared the hell out of me -- it was Steven. He sounded like he was in shock I told him I needed him and to come over that I'd be waiting for him. I got up and made coffee and took a hot shower using some jasmine soap -- it worked yesterday. I was on the swing on the porch when he wheeled into my driveway, crunching those oyster shells. I waited on the porch 'til he got on the sidewalk those shells hurt my soft feet and then I ran to him -- I was crying like a two year-old. I don't know why -- I was a grown woman crying over this man-child. He was glad to see me too. Hugging him is like sex with your clothes on -- it feels so damn good.

He came to tell me about the ROTC Scholarship. He handed me the award letter. I got my education on scholarship awards so I knew the language and understood the conditions: Maintain a cumulative 3.3 GPA; two years active duty for each year of award; decorum and discipline as with any U.S. Army officer; all rules and regulations of the Department of the Army and Congress for military officers to include issues of good moral character. Violations which constitute moral turpitude require repayment of monies; loss of scholarship and ineligibility to serve as a military officer. When I told him that we couldn't live together I broke down and cried. He didn't understand at the moment until the moral turpitude hit him. He was like a steer at the slaughterhouse. We found a way to be together while I was on sabbatical at Rice. We went on dates to Rice Village where we were accepted. Our first date was at Pino's Italian Restaurant right down by the University. I almost couldn't breathe while we were there I was sure some of my students or colleagues would see us. The shit would have hit the fan. Steven was non-plussed about what might happen. Our problem was that we liked touching each other - today it's called public displays of affection. I wore low cut empire-style dresses and purposely tempted him with my 38Ds -- he whispered to me, "I love looking at your beautiful breasts baby," and of course my nipples got hard -- I didn't wear a bra around him -- those titties belonged to Steven. We were going to have a titty-fucking lesson real soon. I loved making him blush and getting an erection -- as he said, 'running up the colors.'

You can probably tell that my language is a whole lot more 'colorful', as Steven calls it than his is. My daddy called my foul language, potty-mouth, that's okay. Every time I got around Steven I lost control, that man melted me into putty and he didn't take advantage of me. I learned not to drop to the colloquial with him he'd just shake his head and ask me if I needed a dictionary. I was the one the PhD and he was busting my chops over my use of the English language. He was right though. It has always been what made me smile as he tells me. I asked him why and he said 'if momma ain't happy ain't nobody happy.' He's right. His language is simple and easily understood, he's always been like that. He calls that verbal economy and with him he doesn't care what anyone thinks about what he writes whereas I care about what folk think about his writing. He just laughs and says, "Lissia I'm not gonna try to make anyone think like me I'm just gonna tell my story." I guess I've graded too many papers loaded down with bullshit. But there's a few lines from the Willie Nelson song "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys," -- 'And them that don't know him won't like him, And them that do sometimes won't know how to take him, He ain't wrong he's just different but his pride won't let him do things to make you think he's right -

Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.'

I'm gonna talk to you girls out there. I don't care what color you are or what color your man is find someone like Steven. Someone who's so damn comfortable with himself that he doesn't have to try and impress anyone and who'll love you for who you are -- now don't try and change him you'll break his spirit. Just enjoy being around someone who focuses his attention on you and tries really hard to make you cum four or five times a day. He doesn't have to have a big dick. Don't hang out with these confused males who aren't sure if they are cosmopolitan or metropolitan -- go find a man and if he's a virgin teach what you want him to do for you when you make love cause when he gets it right that first time you're gonna think you're the virgin and he's the one with the experience. Steven's gonna tell you our whole story -- yeah his dialogue will be 'corny' it still is today -- you call that sweet man on the phone and he's as down to earth as anyone you'll ever meet. His beautiful soft, black hair is grey but damn he is fine. We live too far away to see each other much so we Skype...I still love him - I will till I die. I'm his Lissia.