Broken: The sequel to THE PREACHER'S SON Read online

  “You didn’t answer my question. Would Matthew hurt you?”

  It was too much. Max started crying. Why was she asking all of this? She didn’t want to think about Rogers and the things he’d done to her. She felt confused and ashamed about her lack of sexual knowledge. That beast had ruined her! Didn’t the doctor understand that?

  “I don’t know if Matthew would hurt me. I don’t think so, but maybe he won’t be able to help it since I’m so broken.” Max sobbed harder.

  “What makes you think that? Do you think men can’t control their sexual urges?”

  “I mean they’re going to want it eventually, right? What then? I think they can control it to a point, but they’re going to want it from someone. No man is going to want me lying there crying through sex!”

  Max continued to cry, unable to hold back her feelings of hopelessness. Even if Matthew liked her, she felt that she’d never be able to have a decent relationship with him.

  Dr. Nelson handed Max a tissue, which she took to wipe her eyes. Her hands were still shaking a bit, and she breathed deeply, trying to get herself together.

  “Exactly how would he hurt you? What is he going to do when he loses control?” Dr. Nelson asked quietly.

  “Rogers hurt me. He laughed when he hurt me. It felt like my insides were being ripped apart. I was bleeding, so much blood. It was awful. How do I know that it’ll be any different with Matthew or some other man?”

  “Rogers was abhorrent. He wasn’t having sex with you. You know that, don’t you?”

  “What? What was it then?”

  “He was trying to control you. He was actively trying to do some damage. Trying to make you hurt and have the feelings he wanted you to have. Sex is nothing like that. Let’s talk about sex without love, that is, for pleasure. Some people have sex just to pleasure themselves. But they don’t intend to hurt someone by doing so. As a matter of fact, when it is loveless quite often even though someone sought pleasure and reached an orgasm, they didn’t enjoy it. Just because a person didn’t enjoy it doesn’t mean they intended to hurt the other person. They both engaged in the act with affection, which means both people liking each other being attracted to each other. They want their partner to feel good. That is their desire. Often beyond their own pleasure they want their partner’s pleasure more. Was Matthew treating you like he was out for himself?”

  Max thought a minute before answering. “No, Matthew was not the beast that Rogers was. He acted like he was trying to make me happy, you know, for my first date.”

  “But you think he was going to hurt you because he wouldn’t be able to control his urges. Is that correct?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I got scared when I felt him. I thought that meant that he had the urge for sex. I didn’t think that he couldn’t control himself. I just ran, I guess.”

  “I’ll let you in on a secret. The purpose of romantic kissing is to prepare the body for sex. Did you know that? How did you react to the kissing? I don’t mean how you reacted to his erection. But what did your body feel while you were kissing him?”

  “I got warm and sort of tingly all over. I wanted him to kiss me again.”

  “Where did you feel tingly?”

  “When he put his tongue in my mouth and pulled me closer by grabbing my hips. I felt it then.”

  “Where on your body did you feel tingly?”

  “All over, I guess,” Max whispered.

  “All over? The tingle didn’t concentrate in one area?”

  “I guess it did, sort of.”

  “You were tingly in your fingers or your shoulders? Was it in your big toe?”

  “No.”

  “OK where was that?”

  “Why do you want to know that?”

  “Because the tingling was a sexual reaction just like his erection. If you felt it more in your vagina than any place else, you were reacting just like he did.”

  “Your question is embarrassing,” Max hissed.

  “I understand, Max. You might feel embarrassed because you don’t understand all of your feelings. However, I am not here to judge you. It would be difficult for me to help you if you can’t refer to your own sexual reactions. I want to help you.”

  Max closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I know you want to help me. It’s just that this is so new for me. OK, I will tell you. I got wet from my vagina, really wet and achy. That’s never happened before.” Max refused to meet her gaze and stared at her hands in her lap.

  Dr. Nelson smiled. “I venture to guess you’ve never been stimulated before. You did say that this was you first kiss, right? Your being wet and achy is essentially your body getting prepared to enjoy the erection that he was experiencing. And if he didn’t want you to know his reaction, he wouldn’t have pulled you close to him. Max, I’m going to say something, and I don’t want you to automatically discount it or even respond. I just want you to think about it.

  “You didn’t say much positive about Matthew until I asked you how he actually behaved. You thought he took you someplace expensive because he was only paying half. You figured he paid for you because he felt obligated after he was embarrassed. You said he treated you nicely on your pretend date. He actually wanted to participate in this pretend date. He is attracted to you. He sexually responded to a basic kiss. That doesn’t mean he wanted you just for your body. As a matter of fact, you said he wanted to make you happy. If he did, then why would he want to hurt you by having sex with you?”

  “I guess he is attracted to me. It’s hard to wrap my head around it after all he said before.”

  “No need to guess. You have empirical proof. He had an erection while he kissed you. That’s a fact. I’d venture to guess that, as much as you two want to deny it, you like each other. Yes, he said awful things. We all do when we don’t know what to say or how to react.”

  “Yes, but he still kissed me.”

  “Yes, and give the chance he will kiss you again and probably have another erection.”

  “I don’t want to be his hidden fetish. He doesn’t want to date me after all he said, does he?”

  “Max, you and Matthew were on a very real date. It started out as a pretend so there would be no pressure on you. And the lack of pressure allowed you to become attracted to each other. The intention was pretend. The actuality was real. We are going to have to wrap this up for today. But do you have any other plans with Matthew, perhaps another pretend date?”

  “No I don’t think so. I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

  “Hmmm. Perhaps you can make something happen,” Dr. Nelson said with a smile. “Perhaps you can approach him if you want another date. There is nothing wrong with that.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

  “Maybe the next time you see him do something nice for him.”

  Max nodded. “I can do that.”

  “I’ll see you next week, and, Max? Give him a kiss on the cheek next time you see him. No matter where you are. It will affect him the same way as the kiss you shared the other night.”

  “You think so, Dr. Nelson?”

  “I know so.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Why do you hide your face and regard me as your enemy? Job 13:24

  Matthew tried to concentrate on the stack of invoices on his desk that he’d been staring at for the last hour. He had a lot of work to do, so he couldn’t understand why he was constantly thinking about Max and that pretend date.

  He tried to push her out of his head, but he had to admit to himself that she had gotten under his skin and he couldn’t understand why. What was so special about Maxine James? He really had enjoyed himself. She was easy to talk to, and they had more in common than he’d realized. Why was he still thinking about something that had happened almost two months ago?

  Yes, she was pretty, but so were a whole lot of women. However, she was too naive; she lacked the experience that he was used to from the women he dated. He was used to women who knew what they wanted
in bed and didn’t mind telling him exactly what they wanted from him. He did the same. He couldn’t imagine bedding a virgin.

  While technically he knew that she really wasn’t, realistically she really was. He hadn’t seen such innocence and confusion on a girl’s face since high school. He could tell that the feelings were new to her and that she was struggling to understand them. He wasn’t sure that he wanted such a responsibility.

  He knew that he was attracted to her, and, yes, he wanted to bed her. She possessed every physical attribute that had always attracted him to black women. Her full lips were perfect. She was tall and shapely. Her heavy breasts and full, round behind would overflow his hands. He could just imagine what it would be like to bed her. However, there were too many roadblocks going down that path, and if he did pursue her, there were consequences that he didn’t want to deal with. He knew that he’d never get rid of her because their families were too closely connected.

  He took a deep breath coming to a decision. No, he had to steer clear of Maxine James. Let someone else introduce he to the intricacies of lovemaking. However, as soon as the thought came to mind, he felt an irrational bit of jealousy. A part of him didn’t want another man touching her. What was wrong with him? It had been two months, and he was still feigning for her like a crack head. What the hell?

  He thought about his grandmother. Damn her and her stories of the Ferguson men and their desires for black women! He was not going down that road. There was too much at stake here. He had already made up his mind what type of woman he was going to settle down with, and Maxine James didn’t fit the bill. He’d made himself satisfied with a certain type of woman, and yet when the type of woman he secretly desired came into his line of vision, he couldn’t help staring. He cursed under his breath.

  He thought about the stares they’d received that night. Regardless of the public declaration he’d heard over and over again, times hadn’t changed completely. There were still people who didn’t like interracial relationships. He didn’t want to have to deal with that day in and day out. It was a lot easier and safer to stay within the boundaries he had set for himself. He wanted to run for that Horry County seat next year.

  He thought back to LaKeisha Harper from High School. She had been a cheerleader, tall and beautiful and black. He’d been smitten immediately his freshman year. He had approached her and found that she liked him too. They had two classes together, and he sat next to her in each one.

  It hadn’t taken long for his classmates to start questioning him about the attention he was giving the “black girl.” They assumed that he only wanted sex from her and that she must be putting out for him to talk to her. They had slapped him on the back good-naturedly and asked for details of his escapades. Matthew had been embarrassed at the leers that came their way whenever he talked to LaKeisha.

  He decided to talk to his father about it. When the elder Ferguson sided with his classmates by telling him that he would be ruining his future if he grew serious about a black girl, Matthew had bowed to the pressure and started to ignore LaKeisha. It was a rotten thing to do, a cowardly thing, but he craved the acceptance from his peers and he knew that LaKeisha was not the girl for him. He had hurt her, he knew that, and when she’d cornered him at school he had to tell her that it wouldn’t work and that black should be with black and white should be with white.

  He could still remember the anger and hurt in LaKeisha’s eyes, but the very next week he saw her with Anthony Branch, one of the black basketball players. While he knew it was for the best, it didn’t lessen the pain he felt.

  He had gone out on the pretend date with Max hoping to put those old feelings to rest. He’d hoped that once he’d actually gone out with her that he’d feel the same as he did when he went out with any other girl, minus the sex, but the exact opposite had happened.

  The women he dated were women who wanted a good time just like he did. At first it had been fun to date different women, have sex with them with no strings attached, but it always left him feeling somewhat used and empty. He had to buy dinner and pay for everything in order to get them in the sack. He now asked himself if he was any better than a man who bought sex directly from the corner.

  He hadn’t been on a regular no-sex-just-getting-to-know-you date in years. He’d forgotten what it was like to really talk to a woman with the anticipation of waiting for intimacy until they both were ready. He wondered what it would be like to be with a woman and not be measured by his penis size and performance, just to be with him for just him and not for what he could buy them. He thought about what Kristen said to Max. He had no idea that she felt that he was boring in bed. Maybe it was because it was just sex for him and nothing more. He’d always use condoms with her because she made it no secret that she loved variety in men.

  Why did he have to be attracted to Max? Why had he even agreed to go on that pretend date? He hated the fact that he wanted to see her again, kiss those full lips of hers again. She had been so responsive and passionate, and it had surprised him. He realized that it had surprised her too. He chuckled to himself, remembering her fleeing form after their date.

  He stared at the computer. He would not call her. He was going to stay away from her as much as possible. Hell, she didn’t want him either. It was all pretend. It wasn’t real, no matter how it had felt.

  Maxine James was seriously messing with his head. It wasn’t sex, so what was it? Why did he feel an uncontrollable need to protect her, and why did the thought of his being the one to introduce her to the passions of sex intrigue him? Why was this woman more special than the others?

  In his gut he knew the answer. Max was a breath of fresh air. She didn’t want anything from him. There was no performance pressure because she didn’t want sex. She didn’t expect dinner or clothes or anything else from him. The pretend date had opened a door that he hadn’t expected. It caused him to long for more than the one-night stands he’d grown used to. He pushed her from his mind and tried to concentrate on his work.

  When that failed, he picked up his cell phone and scanned his contact list. What he needed was a real date, not a pretend one, a date where the night would end with wild, passionate sex because he hadn’t been with anyone in months. He figured that his strong attraction to Max was partly due to the fact that he had been working a lot and not taking the time for physical intimacy. He stopped at Brittany’s name. Now here was a good prospect.

  Satisfied with his remedy, he quickly dialed Brittany. She answered, and he put on his smoothest voice and asked her out. She readily agreed, and he hung up the phone pleased with himself.

  Take that, Maxine James, he thought.

  Max had been back to Dr. Nelson twice monthly since the date and had told her that she had not seen nor heard from Matthew. She had tried to hide her disappointment, but not much got by Dr. Nelson. She was grateful that the doctor didn’t dwell on her feelings about Matthew just yet. She’d made up her mind that the date and the kiss had meant little to him.

  So she was more than a little taken aback to see him walking into the gym. She wasn’t sure if she had enough guts to approach him and ask him out. What if he rejected her? Most likely the “pretend” date had not affected him as it did her. He was used to dating.

  She watched as he walked back to the men’s locker room, her eyes hungrily roaming over him. He was dressed in a suit, and she knew that he was changing into his workout clothes.

  She walked back into her office. She tried to busy herself but kept wondering what he was doing. Unable to sit there a minute longer, she walked out of the office back on the floor.

  She saw him running on the treadmill. She took a deep breath and walked over to him, gathering up her courage. He had his iPod on, and she waved her hand in front of his face. He looked at her and smiled, pulling the earplug out of his ears.

  “Hi, Max,” he said, not losing his pace.

  “Hi, Matthew. I was wondering when you were going to make it back in here and use your membe
rship,” she said with a smile. “It’s been a while.”

  “I’ve been busy,” he said, still running, looking straight ahead.

  Max suddenly felt awkward. “Well, have a good workout,” she said and walked off.

  She wanted to look back, but she willed herself not to. Obviously he was not the least bit interested in her. The kiss that sent her mind in a whirl must not have affected him at all.

  She walked to the front of the gym and greeted the members as they came in.

  Matthew didn’t want to see or think about Max. He forced his mind to think about anything else. The date with Brittany had gone well enough. She was a pretty brunette, smart and confident. They had a nice dinner, and then she had insisted that they play some miniature golf. He had not done that in a while, and he had forgotten how much fun it could be.

  They ended back up at her place, and he knew that after he left Max would be totally out of his system, or so he’d hoped. He hadn’t experienced the same intense feelings with Brittany that he felt with Max. He closed his eyes as he kissed her, running his hands over her body. She was a slim woman that didn’t have Max’s curves. Her behind didn’t overflow his hands like Max’s did. Her waist was thicker, and her breasts were smaller.

  He’d deepened the kiss with Brittany, willing his body to respond. He had been surprised when she broke the kiss and stepped back looking at him curiously.

  “Who’s Max?” Brittany asked in surprise.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You said ‘Max’ just now,” Brittany said. “Who’s Max?”

  “I said that you’re working me up to the max,” he lied as quickly as he could. “Baby, you are so hot.”

  She giggled. “I was hoping you weren’t calling some man’s name in my ear.”

  “You know I don’t go that way,” he said, kissing her again.

  She pulled him down on the bed. “Let’s see what way you do go.”

  It was at that moment that her phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID. “Damn. Hold on a minute.”