Justine didn’t know because although she’d found him to be too close, she wasn’t repulsed by it. Her heart was beating so fast, she felt it in her chest and her ears. The warmth of his body and hypnotic scent of his masculine cologne sent her nerve endings racing erratically throughout her body.
“Francis,” she whispered.
“What is it, doll?”
She smiled. It was the second time today he’d called herthe endearment. “You’re too close,” she said, recovering full use of her voice.
He took a step back. “Is that better?”
“Better, but still too close.”
She didn’t have time to react when his hands went around her waist and turned her to face him. Justine didn’t know if it was the fading afternoon light coming in through the kitchen curtains, but Frank’s eyes seemed to darken until they were a shade of blue jeans. She didn’t know how it happened, but lyrics to The Crystals’ hit “Then He Kissed Me” played in her head as Frank’s head slowly came down, and he kissed her.
It was the first time a man had kissed her, and she felt as if she were melting, not only against him but into him. Her emotions whirled and skidded as she struggled to get closer when seconds before she’d told Frank that he was too close for comfort. Her mouth was on fire, and she quivered at the sweet tenderness of his kiss.
The sensual spell was suddenly shattered when she felt the bulge in Frank’s groin, his hands gathering the hem of her dress, baring her thighs, and his labored breathing as he became more and more aroused.
“No, Francis! Please don’t.”
Justine’s strident plea tore and penetrated the web of longing that had held Frank captive the instant he saw her. Not only had he frightened her, but he had broken one of his cardinal rules. He’d kissed a woman on the mouth. Then he had to remind himself that Justine Russell wasn’t a prostitute he paid to take care of his sexual frustrations, but a woman with whom he wanted to openly date, but only if she agreed.
She was standing there looking at him like a deer caught in the blinding glare of a vehicle’s headlights. “I’m sorry, Justine. I shouldn’t have done that,” he said, breathing heavily.
“You’re right, you shouldn’t have kissed me. Now, willyou please go.” It hadn’t been his kiss in as much as it was his hands moving up her inner thighs to touch the place where her body had betrayed her. Her response to Frank had frightened her, because she knew if she hadn’t stopped him, she would’ve shamelessly pleaded with him to make love to her so that she could experience what it really meant to be born female.
“Justine, please let me explain.”
She shook her head. “There’s nothing to explain. Please go and don’t come back again until it’s time for you to pick up Kenny for his cooking lessons.”
Frank felt pain squeeze his heart when he realized the images in his nightmare had manifested. Justine had extended her hand in friendship, and instead of honoring it, he had overstepped and allowed his base instincts to treat her like the women he paid to slake his lust.
She was sending him away, and he would go, yet all was not lost. He promised to come back and pick up Kenny at the end of the school year. Hopefully that would give Justine time to forgive him for his brutish behavior.
He nodded. “Okay, Justine. Take care of yourself.”
She smiled. “You, too.”
Turning on his heels, Frank left the kitchen, picked up the picnic basket, opened the door, and walked out of the apartment. He was glad he hadn’t found a parking space near the apartment building, because walking gave him the time to clear his head.
What the fuck is wrong with me? How could I have forgotten that she’s nothing like the other women I mess around with? She is a single mother struggling not only to make ends meet, but also raising a son on her own, and I treated her like a whore who was willing to do whatever I wanted because she was expecting payment for her services.
Frank unlocked his car and set the basket on the rear seat before getting in and slipping behind the wheel. He staredthrough the windshield. Justine telling him not to come back until the end of June, he thought, was a reprieve, because she hadn’t told him tonevercome back. Hopefully the next six weeks would be enough of a cooling-off period where Justine would forgive him, and it was more than enough time for him to atone for his treatment of her.
CHAPTER19
Justine covered her mouth with her hand as she stared at the images on the television screen of what reporters were calling ghetto riots in which hundreds of students were protesting the killing of James Powell, a fifteen-year-old student who’d been shot and killed by police Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan in front of his friends and more than a dozen other witnesses.
There were conflicting reports from officials in the police department who said Gilligan had killed the student in self-defense. He claimed he’d been attacked by the young male student with a knife. Powell, who was from the Bronx and in the ninth grade, was attending summer school at Robert F. Wagner Sr. Junior High School on East 76th Street, across the street where he was shot.
Whenever a Black boy was killed, the press had a field day when they interviewed people who claimed the kid had a troubled past. Powell was purported to have gone wild after the death of his father, while he’d had prior run-ins with the law when he attempted to board a subway and bus without paying, and he’d also been accused of breaking acar window in an attempted robbery, but had been cleared of those charges.
There was less talk about Lieutenant Gilligan, who prior to killing Powell, had shot a man he claimed was trying to push him off a roof. He also shot a young man he said was burglarizing cars in front of his apartment. TheNew York Daily Newsreported six-two, two-hundred-pound Gilligan had disarmed suspects in the past, so why hadn’t he been able to disarm five-feet, six-inch Powell, who weighed a mere one-hundred twenty-two pounds?
The protests that had begun on Thursday escalated into a riot on Saturday, and when Frank called to her to say he was coming to pick up Kenny, Justine told him she was keeping her son in the house until it was safe for a Black person to walk the streets. People were swept up in the chaos as they exited the subway and local businesses, while some did not realize why they were being pursued by police.
Frank had tried to tell her Kenny would be safe in the car with him, but she wasn’t willing to listen to anything he had to say. Justine told him emphatically that Kenny was her son and therefore her responsibility, and then she hung up the phone. Not only was she concerned about her son staying away from drugs, but also the police, who seemed not to differentiate whether a Black person was young or old, a criminal, or a law-abiding citizen when they drew their weapons to fire without discretion, while claiming self-defense.
“But Mom, nothing will happen to me if I’m with Mr. Dee,” Kenny said, who’d watched her during her conversation with Frank.
