Taking Stock
David completed his report and gently closed his lap-top. He felt very pleased with himself. Since returning to the East Coast his job had been going very well. He rarely had to bring work home with him any more and this had really just been a case of dotting a few 'i's and crossing a few 't's. Now just about the whole of the weekend was his to do with as he pleased.
His brow furrowed a little. His weekend SHOULD have been like that now. Instead much of Saturday would be taken up with looking after the children. Davey just needed a lift to a friend's birthday party but the girls would no doubt want to go out as usual. Not that he objected to it - not that he didn't enjoy spending more time with them. However, he couldn't help remembering that it was all down to his wife's job. All those training courses. Why would a teacher need so many training courses! Perhaps it was because she was teaching... those people.
He tried to let that thought wither on the vine. He didn't see himself as a prejudiced man - he knew quite a few... coloured people. Some of them were perfectly alright. He knew one who he'd be happy to call a friend. Of course those were hard-working African-Americans, the sort you found in a town like Ireton. Over in the Capital it was a very different story. In the Inner Cities they were just... different. Perhaps all the courses were to teach his wife how to work with... people like that.
He had tried to understand - he really had. He'd put in a word with someone he knew at the Alexandria school. That would have been perfect but suddenly Dee had just declared she was going to work in the inner city. What on earth had got into her?
Suddenly he heard a noise from the kitchen. It was the radio - playing some sort of music. An unusual choice for their usual station. He got up and moved over to the entrance into the kitchen.
The music had a heavy beat - a distinctly 'urban' tinge to David's way of thinking. He wasn't up to date on these things but he knew that much. That wasn't what caught his attention though. His wife and his daughter were dancing together. Little Leah was giggling and having great fun but David's eye was caught by Dee.
Dee was moving her hips and arms in time to the beat of the music. It was nothing salacious but her fluid movements stirred something deep within him. For the first time in a long time he realised just how beautiful his wife was. She was smiling and enjoying her time with her youngest daughter as Leah tried to keep up with mommy. David suddenly took note of his wife's bottom as she shimmied to the beat. He felt his pulse quicken and what felt dangerously like the onset of an erection.
Leah suddenly spotted him and squealed delightedly, "Come and dance daddy!" He stood for a moment - not sure what to do. He saw Dee looking at him. Did she want him to dance? She smiled at him. For a moment he wanted nothing more than to join them but then he remembered that one thing he certainly did NOT do was dance. He never felt comfortable doing it and knew that he never looked right when he tried. Anyway - that was by the by. He certainly couldn't dance to music like that - even if he might have done otherwise.
David stood in the doorway with a weak half-smile on his face. Leah lost patience with him and shouted for her sister. Maddy arrived at the run and joined in dancing with a delighted giggle. David yearned to be able to join them, to be able to express himself like that, to be able to enjoy himself like that. He saw his wife was looking at him again. He saw her give him a little nod. For a brief liberating half-second he half-decided to join them. Then he realised how foolish he would look and how important it was for a man in his position to always maintain standards of behaviour. He swallowed and then turned on his heel before walking back into his study and closing the door.
Dee went through the motions until the song ended, not wanting to spoil her daughters' fun, but once it had finished she closed the radio off. The girls began singing a high-pitched version of the rhythmn and to dance with each other as they left the kitchen too. Dee was left alone to resume making the evening meal. It had been one of those special little moments. Nothing spectacular - but a moment shared between her and her girls, especially little Leah who was starting to grow up SO fast.
She remembered the look on David's face . Why hadn't he joined them? The girls wouldn't have cared if he couldn't have kept the beat. She wouldn't have cared. It would have meant so much to the girls if he had just let his hair down a little just this once. She wasn't angry with him, just frustrated. She had gone a long way beyond being angry with him now.
She thought back a few days when she had been with her friends at the gym in the Capital. She had been doing goblet squats. They were supposed to be excellent for the thighs and butt. Then she and Anna had switched to frog pumps. They lay side by side thrusting up with their glutes to bring their butts up and down quickly.
"Keep powering - twenty per set. Feel them doing some good girls. Let me see you working them booties."
That was LaTreya - the formidably sculpted personal fitness instructor.
"May I come in ladies," that was a calm studiously polite male voice.
"Rest ready for another set girls."
Dee was pleased to take that little breather. LaTreya tended to push them pretty hard. She felt the warm fatigue in her leg muscles. It was probably as well that after the next set of pumps she would be done for the day. She looked around to see her instructor talking to an average-sized really rather nondescript African-American man in his sixties.
He was dressed well but not inordinately so.
"It's him," whispered Anna.
"What ... who?" Dee didn't have to wait for an answer - it was provided organically.
"My apologies for interrupting you ladies. I just wanted to make sure that LaTreya here had all the equipment she needed."
"Don't be crazy Mr Taylor, come over and say hello."
That was Emily of course. However, Dee hardly even noticed that fact. This was Mr Taylor, the man behind the Foundation. Not only the owner of this gym, indeed of the whole development, but also ultimately her employer at her new school.
He didn't look like a heavy-hitter or a plutocrat. He just looked like a rather genial man of a certain age. "Well it's never polite to turn down an invite. You look delightful as always Emily. I don't believe I've had the pleasure of meeting your two friends yet."
They both got to their feet. It seemed ridiculous to first meet someone while lying on your back.
"Hi, I'm Anna."
"Oh yes - I think I've seen you out and about with Izeye. That's right?" Mr Taylor had a twinkle in his eye as he said it - as if he was sharing a joke.
Anna giggled and nodded. "Yes, Izeye is my master. He's teaching me how to be a Black man's woman."
Dee again felt a certain unreasonable envy of her friend. She could be so open and so blatant. Almost before she realised it she heard Anna conclude another sentance.
"...and this is my friend Dee."
"What a pleasure. My old friend Shaka has told me quite a lot about you. I also hear that you are doing well over at Tubman." The small lines around Mr Taylor's eyes crinkled. "Well I mustn't interrupt you. Keep up the good work ladies." He gave a little chuckle and then, with a smile for LaTreya, headed for the door.
Dee watched him go. There was nothing overtly impressive about the man but he certainly had something. Was it just the fact that they all knew that he ran the Foundation. Did they project the power of that position onto this mild-mannered apparently rather average African-American man? She didn't think so and she'd heard Shaka talk about Mr Taylor sometimes. Shaka wasn't easily impressed or easily fooled.
As she set to exercising again she thought about what he had said to her. About how she was doing well over at Tubman. For a moment she wondered if he knew everything about what she did over there. Then she remembered that little smile of his and was suddenly certain that there was very little went on in their little world that Mr Taylor didn't know ALL about.
Extra-curricular Tuition
Her work with her four young men, once everyone had got a general idea of where things stood, had been going very well. She had learned how they liked her to dress for them and she had been very happy to do so. In return they would tease her a little, be a little salty even at times, give her an idea of how they felt about her.
Not quite the usual dynamic but then everyone was over 18 and it did seem to be effective. Once they had their fun they would get down to the supposed real business of these sessions. They were happy and ready to learn - so long as they could see the practical benefit of what they were being taught. She wouldn't try them on algebra or quantum physics but help with form-filling or advice on housing and basic skills tuition was much more welcome.
Each week she had set them a project and each week, in return, they had been allowed to ask her to do something. She had a strong suspicion what they really wanted from her but, for a time, everyone played the game.
Dee had instinctively decided on how she would 'dress to impress' her four young men. She had a very good idea of what her attraction was for them. She was a form of authority figure, a woman from the prosperous suburbs, a woman with education and qualifications. In short - she was unobtainable.
Or she should have been. That first meeting they'd given her some sass, tested her mettle so to speak. They were there because, in their hearts, they knew that they needed the training she could offer. However, admitting that they needed anything from anyone came real hard to young men like this. Let alone admitting they needed it from someone like Dee - almost their polar social opposite.
Looking back she realised the moment that had all changed. The moment she had shown them her necklace, the one with the 'S' marked out, the one given to her by her man.
She'd seen the four young men get the message. They might have been off the streets for a while but they came from round here and they knew what that necklace meant. It meant that their tutor wasn't to be messed with - she had Shaka behind her. However, almost counter-intuitively, it also meant that she might be down to being messed with in a whole more enjoyable way.
Pops had told her how to set the agenda. When she had dressed specifically for them at their second meeting they had understood instinctively that the 'unobtainable' just might come within reach.
She had been careful about it. Leaving Tubman High at the end of the school day for a quick meal with her friend Chris over in the Taylor development. A quick meal and then a very careful preparation for 'her young men.' She had wanted to look really good for them and she had wanted them to know that she had put in the effort to please them.
She had carefully considered her choices. Dressing like a slut would not be appropriate and anyway never seemed entirely natural for her. She wanted to feel herself and at ease around these four young men. She knew that any nervousness or anxiety could be taken the wrong way.
So she had dressed to her strengths. A simple white blouse under a black tailored jacket. A tight black leather-style skirt that finished half-way up her thigh. Tan stockings with hold-ups. A pair of simple but classic three-inch heels. A careful touch-up of her minimal make-up. Her shoulder-length blonde hair pulled back into a pony-tail. Her papers for the evening carried in a smart black brief-case. Nothing flashy, nothing obvious, but everything very carefully selected to send a message.
She had walked into that meeting room looking all business. She knew the look suited her - the look of a P.A. for a very upscale employer. The sort of woman who would never ever have ANYTHING to do with the likes of Pops and his friends.
