Chapter 1: Lilly
I t was a beautiful wedding. We were married in his seaside estate in Long Island, New York. My mother cried, my father cried, his family weren’t there because his mother and father had long died, and the rest of the family didn’t show or care, but there were plenty of friends who came to see who the bride and groom had married.
You see I’m young, black, and penniless, and he’s white in this thirties and rich as all out doors.
My friend Tammy said, “Where did you find that good looking hunk of a man and he’s white too. I could stay in bed with him and never come up for air if you know what I mean. Last thing I remember you were going out with that black dude, what’s his name?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about?”
“You know,” and she snapped her finger, “The one who wouldn’t take no for an answer. The one who put you out of his car because you wouldn’t give him some, and you had to walk a mile back home in the dark. You know how dark those country roads are.” There are somethings you want to leave behind when you are starting a new life. And you don’t want nosy and talkative friends reminding you of your bad choices.
And she gave me a wink and a full tooth smile before she said, “You know you might have to give up some head.”
“No, I don’t know the guy you’re talking about, and what do you mean give up some head?” I said to her in my innocent wide eyed glare, knowing full well what she meant. I wasn’t completely country or stupid.
“You know go down on him. I hear men size you up by the shape of your mouth.” I scowled at her as if she was crazy. Maybe I didn’t know much about men and I’m glad I got married so I could learn that kind of stuff from a husband and not random men coming and going. “Don’t you know you have to be ready for anything with a man like him?” She says grinning in Randall’s direction and taking a sip of Champaign in between our conversation.
“Being ready for what,” I questioned? “And what are you talking about a man like that?”
“Now you can’t be that naïve,” she says leaning close to me. “This is a rich man who can have any woman he wants. You have to ask yourself why he chose you.” I had lived in a small town in Virginia most of my life with the most exciting thing to happen was for me and my friends to meet at the dairy queen and get ice cream with toppings.
It was kind of late to start asking those type of questions so I put it out of my mind.
I met Randall Seaborne when he bought all the land in Jefferson County. He had arrived from the north and some say he was the most handsome and riches man they ever saw, black and white whispered about him, and they said he would open a business and put everybody to work and he did, including me.
I had graduated from high school that summer and had plans of going to college when I went to work for him as a secretary. At first he never noticed me and went about doing whatever it was he was doing. I trained his workers on using computers and software and brought his company into the computer age. Few people around knew as much about computers and the internet as I did, and that’s when he began to take notice. He would bring me flowers, and then presents and then sitting on my desk whispering in my ear about taking me away from here.
He was the best looking man I had seen in my life and he talked different. He had a northern refined accent and mine was a little country. I tried to improve it but that didn’t happen until later. I would work late at night and he would take me home in his limo. People would talk because the town was so small and because he’s white and I’m black and I was barely nineteen.
The town’s people thought he was doing things to me at his business and especially in the back of his limo because of the dark windows. He was a perfect gentleman and never once did he try to French kiss me. I wondered why myself because at my