start of a jazz story

 The sweat that slipped down Rene’s backside was not from the New York heat. Yet, despite the encroaching chill that the middle of September invited to Harlem, she had a fan poised directly towards her bed, cranked to its highest setting. The creaks of her rickety, wrought-iron bed drowned out the cacophony of the city beneath her. She wished it were quieter, not so much as to avoid complaining neighbors, but rather to listen. Barking dogs, crying children, hollering drunkards, sporadic car beeps and “Jackass!” exclamations were welcome to her ears to distract her from…well whatever this man was doing to her that even God could not call fornication.

With a shudder that no fan chill could induce, the man rolled off of Rene and flopped to the other side of the bed. Grateful, she excused herself to the bathroom before he could pry about her experience with him. Upon her return, she found him in the same position she had left him in, making no indication of moving. To speed things along, she had to be the first to collect her clothes, as if she were supposed to be the one leaving her own house.

Ray took notice of her haste. “Aw, Nae where do you gotta get to?”

She bristled at the use of an unsanctioned nickname. “Raymond, I’m a busy woman. You’re lucky I could squeeze you in at seven today.”

“Busy doing what?”

“Not being in bed with you.” Rene shimmied her underwear up her thighs, which made Ray leer in amazement. She shot him a warning look. “Isn’t your wife supposed to have dinner done by now?”

Raymond rolled his eyes.  “Told her I had work ‘til eight. That’s a whole hour away. I’ll be up, just give him a minute.”

With a strong build and sweat glistening on his bronzed skin, any woman with half a mind would have jumped right back into that bed. As enticing as Ray’s figure looked, his performance was becoming less than optimal, and Rene concluded that what had just occurred between her legs was barely less than torture. The thing that upset her was that he used to be good. Scratch that–he used to be great. She used to marvel at how the pigment blanched from her knuckles while she gripped sheets, bedposts, his shoulders, anything in sight. Back then, he didn’t come over as frequently. His arrivals were spread out between months, usually preceded by a domestic dispute or a night at the bars. The best times would be when he would show up unannounced. But lately, the novelty of his visits had begun to wear off, as he kept exhausting the relationship. Rene figured that the new baby might be an added stressor, and moreover meant that he was out of practice with the Mrs.

She had become the practice dummy.

Shivering away the harrowing thought, Rene clipped on her bra and threw Ray’s clothes at his head, cementing her stance on the matter. As she waited for him to gather himself, she rifled through her closet for an evening gown, eventually landing on deep purple with a ruched bodice. She paired it with some patent leather pumps and laid it out on the bed, carefully eyeing it to determine the accompanying accessories.

“Where’s that dress going?” Ray asked, clasping his belt with a satisfying click.

“Out,” Rene answered, back turned as she picked through a jewelry box on her dresser. The silence signified expectation, so she elaborated, “Just a club. With friends.”

This seemed to satisfy his inquiry as he responded with a gentle “Hm.” 

They finished getting dressed without another word. Rene hoped she had made it clear of her desire for him to not overstay his welcome, and it appeared she had. There was no protest until she walked him to the front door.

“Why won’t you let me take you out? I’ve been trying for weeks now,” he pleaded his case in the stairwell.

“Because that’s not what I want, Raymond. And also…” She tapped her ring finger in explanation. “You shouldn’t want that either.”

“Then why is there no objection to having me over? Since I shouldn’t want it?”

“It’s not about wants. It's about needs. I can’t blame you for having them, otherwise I’d be a hypocrite.”

“So you don't want to have sex with me.” It rang in the stairwell as more of a statement than a question.

Not anymore, she thought, narrowing her eyes with warning.

“Not necessarily,” she pursed her lips, deciding how to spare his ego. “Like how, I don't really want to write this novel, but I’m more than aware that I need to.” Though only she could hear it, the clamor of thoughts in her mind emphasized her point, threatening to burst forward past the dam of her tongue.

“Girl, you know good and well you’re not going to finish that thing.”

“Not with you at my doorstep I’m not.”

Raymond chuckled dryly, taking the hint. He disappeared down the steps only to reappear moments later with a variety of mail in hand.

“Least I could do,” he shrugged, offering it to her. Raymond tipped his hat and vanished back down the stairs.

Sweet guy. Rene thought. Sweet enough to get my mail for me, but not enough to stop cheating on his recently pregnant wife.

She concluded he would make for a good character, and, in the same thought, made a mental note to scratch him from the list of candidates she could have over.

That left her with five. Five men whom she knew roughly enough about to let them inside her home and her body. Six was the best number, so she could have one for every day of the week, and save Sunday for soul redemption. Though her mother did not know of her habits, Rene felt just badly enough to where she refused to go to church with her mother and have a man over within the same 24 hours. There was a tacit agreement amongst the now five to never push the relationship past the confines of her apartment. Each man had a role, and they were indifferent about it until they began to want. Rene operated on a needs basis. There was no room for wants. She wanted a myriad of things throughout her life, but her needs had led her here, a small apartment in Harlem with a racing mind and active libido, and no husband nor pages to deem her worthy in the eyes of society.

Rene sifted through her mail, haphazardly throwing it on the blanket of papers that already littered her dining room table, as well as most surfaces in the house. One of the envelopes stood out amongst the rest, marked across the front with bright red ink: Rent Due.

She sighed, tearing it open and painfully familiar with the words that followed.

Dear Mr. Adkins,

We are writing to inform you that the amount owed this month ($50) has not yet been paid. Your daughter has informed us of your unemployment which has allowed us to be lenient with the timing of recent payments. However, changes in management are stringent about enforcing punctuality. This is the last late payment we can allow. If this happens again, we will be forced to take action.

Sincerely,

Opal House Management

Gritting her teeth, Rene pushed away half-drafted manuscripts from her desk to uncover a sepia wooden box and unclasped the latch. Inside lived a crumpled stack of bills, ranging from $1 to $20. Surveying the wads of cash with her just eyes, Rene knew that she was short a few dollars, and she was running out of time and excuses.

She had once considered seduction, but then her body would become a transaction, something she strongly opposed. There was no transaction with her other lovers; they came of their own volition, and she genuinely enjoyed their company. It was the closest she could approximate an actual relationship, one that would please her mother, but it was all she could afford. Beyond her apartment, there was a lack of trust. Within it, she held the reins. The men didn’t exist once they left her doorstep. Simple, clean, and not tricky.

Seduction was tricky, and therefore not an option. That left her with her freelance work, since her novel was nowhere close to being finished and was consistently being re-written by her editor to make it more appealing.

“We’re in wartime, Adkins,” the editor chastised, puffing cigar smoke in her face.  “Tell your father if he wants this book to take off, it needs to be about war or love. Not incessant ponderings about the state of the Negro woman. And tell him to quit writing about women altogether. Then at the very least it’ll sell at the corner store.”

The papers he had pushed back across his desk to her now sat on the coffee table, untouched since the meeting. Flecks of ash still dotted the cover page, right under the author’s name: Henry Adkins. Rene stared longingly at the pages, wishing the man she’d donned her pseudonym after was present to comfort her.

Keep pushing, Nae, her father’s voice rang above the drone of her thoughts. Nothing ever happens without a push.

Rene sighed, closing the lid. She scribbled a reminder to go see her mother this weekend on a scrap sheet of paper and placed it on top of the box. Not a moment later, a car beep sounded from under her window, which belonged to Cheryl’s brand new Chevrolet sedan.

“Hurry up, Rene! I don't want to be late because of you!” Cheryl yelled from the car window, with no regard for the other patrons of the apartment building.

Praising that she had gotten dressed beforehand, Rene snatched her purse from off the dining room table and sauntered down the steps to the awaiting vehicle.