Tanya Brown marveled at how energized she was after having such a powerful orgasm. Breakfast was prepared in a jiffy after she had settled into her routine. Chris was still snoring from his exertion, and she smiled as she tickled his foot bottom trying to wake him.
"Well, a little sex is better than no sex at all for a wife, Lord," Tanya whispered.
She was feeling even more excited about going back to school but didn't know how to bring up the subject with Chris.
He behaved so ignorant sometimes and it made her wonder what had happened in his life that made him so antisystem. Headley said he would start her off on Math, English and then evaluate her to target two other subjects. Twenty years ago, Tanya Brown was a straight A student, but went to a fete and trusted a friend to watch her drink, while she went to the restroom. The rest was history and the result of broken trust was being pregnant after being sexually assaulted by her best friend's guests. It shattered her family and Tanya's dreams. However, there was a silver lining and hope in the future.
Tanya would see that same friend passing in her SUV BMW, a tear would stain her apron, but Tanya knew that God only allowed things to happen for a purpose and the twins were going to be a blessing.
"Chris, wake up baby, you are going to be late for work, honey," Tanya said softly.
Chris grumbled as his eyes opened.
"What makes you so happy Tanya? I've noticed your attitude from the other day."
"Chris, I'm sick and tired of the conditions in which I live. The fact that I live in the ghetto with an outside bathroom in this day and age is ridiculous, but I've decided that I can't wait on you anymore, so I am going back to school to further myself and build my business," Tanya replied, welcoming the chance to let out her frustration.
"Wow, why are you so salty, so early in the morning? Didn't you get something sweet earlier?" Chris asked while rubbing his eyes.
"Tisk, tisk Chris. There is more to life than twenty seconds of sex. I feel we have become stagnant. How long have we been together and you haven't made a decent woman out of me?" Tanya asked.
"Baby, don't worry, you know how I feel about the system man has set up to be a millstone around their necks. We don't need the go in front of any man to say we are married."
Tanya sighed, "Chris I think those locks are draining your senses. I wasn't supposed to be shacked up and living the life of a concubine. My mother and father expected me to be a respectable married woman."
"Well, where have their expectations gotten you Tanya?" Chris blurted out.
He knew from the words left his lips that he would regret saying them.
He watched as Tanya turned and walked out of the bedroom slamming the door ... the rickety Celotex ceiling shuck and chi chi dust fell into his manicured locks.
"Shit, my hair," Chris muttered as he dusted out his hair on the white sheet.
Tanya's chest heaved.
"There is only so much a woman can take Lord, the twins weren't my fault and when I met Chris, I thought he had drive, passion and ambition. We could be the perfect couple. He could make the earth move beneath me in bed, but Lord, what have I done wrong. I've strived to make the best for the children and him, but I don't feel appreciated or respected. It's time for me God, me. To hell with him. I needed someone strong to lean on when the time got hard. I needed someone to support my dream, but it seems to be all about him. No more. I want to drive a nice car and live uptown in my own house. I am going to do it. Thank you for sending Headley Big and I am going to tell you straight. I don't know what the future holds, but I am going to trust you and if I fall, help me up and don't hold it against me, please, because it's you God that put me in this mess," Tanya muttered to herself while standing at the back yard, looking at the amount of leaves that Headley needed to rake.
Tanya grabbed the broom and swept some closer to her kitchen window.
"Well, Bathsheba produced the wisest man in history, with any luck. I will become an educated woman, come hell or high water. Whatever it takes to get and keep Headley I will do, because my man does not consider me enough to be his wife. Look how Headley reveres his wife, ten years after she has died. Well, since I remind him of Brenda, if it takes Brenda to advance me, then Brenda it is. I am tired of people treating me as a door mat. The twins will have to fight for their own too. I am tired of how they belittle me. I am going to prove to them that I am the source of their brains."
Tanya smoothed out the same shorts that she was wearing the other morning and waited at the kitchen counter for Headley Big to emerge.
Meanwhile, a few miles down the road.
Christopher's stomach growled because he had left the house quietly without breakfast. It was difficult to face Tanya when she was in such a mood. She had kept the secret about her plans to go back to school, but he also was keeping a secret of his own. It was that secret and events that led to what had shaped his outlook on life. Even the growing of his locks and the turning his back on the system and the institutions that he had held in high regard.
Tanya was right twelve years ago he would never have envisaged himself living in a run-down house in the ghetto shackled up with a woman, with two stepchildren who thought he was just a grease monkey that they only saw as an ATM. God was punishing him for the secret that he held with Joshua being diagnosed autistic. Even if it wasn't God, that is just how he felt and until God told him otherwise Christopher was hiding from the world clad in a greasy overall and under locks that he hated.
Chris typed a message on his hype phone to Tanya.
Tanya, before I met you, I was an intern in the Corporate world. I met an executive and we fell in love. She was the centre of my world until I found out she was going through a divorce. I got sucked into the devisive mess between an estranged husband and wife. I broke into his office and found evidence that he had been embezzling money from the Church, that he ran. I never told Devlin what I had done, but Bishop Munroe found out. Naive to real life I thought I could have blackmailed him into signing the papers, but it backfired when I found out he and his wife began sleeping together. I met with him one night to press my case and I was attacked but I escaped with my life. Heartbroken and burnt I stayed away from the woman that I loved.
I thought that over time his quest for the information would have subsided, but months after I left the uptown society, my sister Marsha was sexually assaulted by her boyfriend and his cronies. This boyfriend is an officer of the law. I've heard that he has sworn an oath to either retrieve the information or kill me. I've never told you this because, I believe that it was my duty to protect my family. I have been turned off marriage based on what happened and how I observed a man of the cloth behave. I hope you can find it in your heart to work this through, but ten years is a heavy burden to carry.
Chris's heart raced as he watched the phone to see if Tanya read his message from his heart.
A few miles away
Tanya heard her phone, buzz in the middle of math class. She took it, looked at the screen and hissed her teeth.
"You are a quick learner, Tanya. I never expected you to have grasped indices that fast," Headley said as he patted her on her naked shoulder.
The halter top blouse revealed just enough cleavage to make a single man happy, but Headley Big was in his element teaching and showed no signs of being enticed by Tanya's choice of revealing clothing. It slowly dawned on her that Headley was not tempted by sight, but by intellect and mental stimulation. A part of her was curious, but it soon became buried because he was helping her to acquire a better future instead of wanting to bury his head in the past.
"Listen Tanya, if you are serious about school and you definitely seem to be. We are in November, and I may be able to get you registered as a private candidate to sit the exams in June next year. All things being equal by September, you could be enrolled in a community college pursuing an Associate Degree," Headley Big said while he fidgeted with his papers.
Tanya's face twisted as if she was sucking on a sour lime.
"Headley Big, Associate Degree and community college my backfoot. I have a dream to have my BSc in less than two years. How about I sit three subjects in January and three in June 2023? Life will not stop me this time Headley Big, neither will that husband of mine. I want to be graduating the same time as my twins Raheem and Rhianna. Then I am going for my Masters. I want to catch up my cohort and change my life for good. By the time I'm forty. I should be Tanya Brown BSc, MBA with my own business and a house of my own."
Headley nodded in the affirmative.
"Trouble in the house?" he snickered.
"Headley, when a woman wants something and nobody else is pushing her, she must find the courage from deep within to try and try. Chris or the kids won't hold me back. I cry myself to sleep at nights just seeing how my cohort of girls drive past me sitting on my plump ass selling my wares over a stall. Hell no, I have dreams Big, big dreams."
Meanwhile, Chris became increasingly impatient as he waited on her to read his message. He decided it was a sign. He hurriedly pressed the delete button and the message disappeared.