Never Knew Love Like This Before, Page 8

  “I guess you are right. I am just so happy. I hope he wants me, Alex. I hope he still finds me beautiful. Here I was worried that he would be too old to have children with, worried that he couldn’t give what I needed when he was all I needed all along.” She smiled. Alexandra looked up when she heard the doorbell.

  “Isaiah is back already?” Alexandra smiled as she braced herself and prepared to stand.

  “Why would Isaiah ring the bell, silly? He’s got a key. Let’s see who it is,” Morgan told her, reaching for some pillows to put behind her so she could sit up.

  “Okay,” Alexandra chirped as she walked to the intercom phone and picked it up.

  “Hello, Ms. Q. There is a visitor here for you,” the doorman exclaimed. “Should I send him up?” Alexandra turned to Morgan quizzically and then returned her attention to the doorman on the other end of the line.

  “Well, we weren’t expecting anyone. Who is it?” Alexandra asked as Morgan sat up in an alert state completely at a loss as to who it might be. Alexandra heard the doorman ask the stranger in the background a question and then returned to her.

  “He said his name is Semen,” the doorman quipped, trying to hide his mirth.

  “Semen, are you sure?” Alexandra asked amused.

  “That’s what the gentleman said,” the doorman insisted.

  “One moment please.” Alexandra muted the phone and turned toward Morgan. “The doorman said the visitor’s name is Semen.” She looked at Morgan for any kind of recognition. “He sounds like he had an accent.”

  “Oh wait, Seymen-Cansin? But that’s not possible; he is thousands of miles away from here.” Morgan’s heart began to race and she felt frightened as her heart began palpitating. It couldn’t be, not now when she was all broken up and bandaged up. Not now when she had decided; what would she do?

  “Whoa, hold up. You mean to tell me that you think that’s that Semen German guy you met on your trip?” Alexandra was flabbergasted and her hand went to cover her mouth that flew open. “Say it ain’t so?” she hoped, genuinely concerned seeing the horror on Morgan’s face.

  “Well, that’s the only Seymen I know,” Morgan barked, not finding the situation in the least bit amusing.

  “What should I do?” Alexandra asked, wondering how to handle the situation. “You can’t exactly not see him; he flew all the way here to see you. But why didn’t he just call?” Alexandra asked.

  “Actually, I think he has been trying to call. Isaiah got really upset a couple days back because he kept getting hang up calls from an out-of-the-country number. I mentioned Seymen to him but not in detail. Oh my gosh!” The full spectrum of the situation dawned on her.

  “What?” Alexandra mouthed.

  “I don’t have time to explain now. Invite him up,” she ordered.

  “With you looking like that?” Alexandra surveyed Morgan’s haphazard attire and sickly appearance.

  “All the better, Bruce and Troy ditched me so he would too, since he is much younger and I am sure twice as vain as Bruce.”

  “Send him up please,” Alexandra told the doorman in her most polite voice knowing that she had kept him waiting a while. She knew they would have to slip him something extra on the way out next time. Money always made people feel better. When Alexandra hung up the phone she turned to Morgan for more information, but before the first words were to leave her mouth, the doorbell chimed.

  “Well, at least I get to see this fine specimen of a creature that rocked your word for a few days while you were incognito.” She winked as she went to the door. Opening it left her in awe. He was majestically tall, at least six foot six inches from the ground, and though he looked a little rugged as though he had a long flight and a really hard time, he was beautiful. Gorgeous big blue eyes, curly blond hair, pink rosy cheeks and lips and very muscular and hard-bodied. She looked like he spent time in the gym, and though he had on a loose T-shirt his pectorals and six pack begged to be noticed. She almost drooled as she must have stood at the door for at least a minute without greeting him.

  “Hello Seymen-Cansin,” Morgan said, helping out her awestruck friend who just simply stepped aside so that he could enter.

  “Morgan, oh baby, what’s wrong? What has happened with you?” Alexandra listened to the way he rearranged his words and sighed, while behind him she looked at Morgan wide-eyed with admiration.

  “Oh I had an accident,” she told him casually, “the day I returned I was driving and ran head-on into oncoming traffic. That’s why I look like this.” She tried to explain, embarrassment pierced her but something familiar stirred in her loins as she looked at him.

  “Oh baby, ich vermisse dich mein schatz. I missed you so much darling.” He told her in German and then translating it to English as he reached over to embrace her. Morgan put her hands against his chest to stop his progression but he gently pushed his body against her futile resistance and allowed his lips to rest passionately upon hers. Alexandra was stupefied. She didn’t know what to do so she just stood there watching.

  “Seymen-Cansin, we cannot do this,” she told him, forcing him to pull his face away from her. “Please stop.”

  “Baby, so many bad things happen now to me. I fly here with a special surprise for you. When I don’t hear from you so long, I was afraid you forget me.” He searched her eyes for a response and tears turned his eyes red as he looked at her bandaged face and her bruised skin.

  “What are you saying?” Concern laced her voice and finally brought Alexandra back to earth propelling her feet to sit next to him by Morgan’s side.

  “Oh, I am here in Amerika now at two o’clock maybe last day in the evening maybe.” He began his story struggling for the words to explain how he felt. “I think someone might see that I am not from Amerika . . . oh schatzy you were right. It’s not safe to be here alone in this county.” He looked at her with huge blue puppy-dog eyes. Alexandra was so drawn into his accent she was almost right upon him. The sincerity in his voice and the tears in his eyes brought forth empathy as he swallowed hard and continued. “Someone I think was following me from the Manhattan island. Oh darling I changed three trains and I looked the large plans in the subway to find where you told me you were living.”

  “You mean the subway maps?” Alexandra asked, wondering what plans he referred to.

  “Ja ja . . . maps. Then I was to get off the train in Manhattan and it starts to get dark when I am out because I go always wrong.” Frustration strained his words. “And this man was also with me when I am off the train.” Drawn into his words both Morgan and Alexandra waited for what he would say next.

  “Oh I am so sorry your first experience in America is this way, but it’s not safe to travel alone when you don’t know where you are going.” Alexandra tried to soothe his pain. Morgan felt numb and she still didn’t know what to say, how to feel or react. She knew Seymen-Cansin was charming and wasn’t surprised that not one logical thought went through Alexandra’s usually analytical head.

  “I was beat up pretty bad, mein frau. He knocked me over the head with a large piece of wood and I was feeling me falling to the floor. They stole all my money, video camera, digital camera, and baby; I was having for you an engagement ring. I wanted to make a nice vorschlag for meine madchen . . . ah what is it you say in English.” He held his head as he tried to make the translation. “Propose! I want to make nice propose to my girl.” He stopped and gazed up sadly at Morgan trying to gauge if his words had impacted her, but she didn’t understand.

  “I don’t understand why you would come here like this Seymen-Cansin. It was dangerous and reckless and irresponsible.” She admonished him trying to stand her ground. What was she going to do?

  “Ich liebe dich schatzy. I love you. I must come,” he maintained. “You don’t want me?”

  “We spent a few days together. We are strangers. It’s not right to just show up at my door by flying halfway around the country. How can you love me?” She told him, hurt that she had to say those wo
rds. Isaiah! What was she going to do?

  “You don’t care that I was attacked?” Incredulously he stared at her. “That the man he steal now from me everything? I have it no money. He tried to take my backpack but I punched him with my fists. Look!” he showed her his scarred and injured knuckles. “Here, feel my head.” He took Morgan’s hand and began probing around for where he was hit with what he believed to be a stick.

  “Wow, all of that really happened? I never would think that people are knocking people over the head with sticks these days, more like guns and gangs.” Alexandra tried to see Morgan’s line of reasoning, but the tears just came when Seymen-Cansin looked into their eyes and saw disbelief.

  “The police came, the ambulance came. It was so funny; they turn the lights on that makes the noise. I only see that on television.” He smiled behind his pain. Morgan and Alexandra couldn’t help smiling at his childlike glee experiencing what is an everyday annoyance in New York like a new toy. “They take me to the emergency room where I was in the night with a doctor and a police officer. Then in the morning they were with me at the German embassy in Manhattan and they take me to a hostel. I told them I know I don’t have to stay long when I again with my beautiful woman.” He smiled sexily, flashing his even white teeth.

  “Oh Seymen, you cannot stay with me.” Her words timidly left her mouth as she tried to make it not sound as bad as it did. “I had an accident; I have to have multiple surgeries on my face before I will be anywhere near normal. I cannot be a host to you. This is just a very bad time,” she reasoned, but it didn’t take the shock away from his face.

  “I don’t care. I can take care of you. Ich leibe dich . . . I mean it that I love you. I think you are beautiful. I will never leave you,” he told her, wrapping his arms around her thigh as she lay across the sofa helpless to resist him.

  “You don’t know me well enough and I don’t know you well enough to allow you to stay here in my home,” Morgan told him almost inaudibly.

  “What is it you mean to say to me?”

  “Morgan, why don’t you just tell him?” Alexandra interrupted, startling the two. They had almost forgotten that she was there. Morgan couldn’t help feeling horrible. She really liked Seymen and he was so good to her, he made her feel welcome in his country and showed her a nice time; she felt like an ungrateful American, after all, that’s how the Europeans refer to us. Her thoughts crumbled in her mind as she fought to find the words to express how she felt.

  “Tell it what to me?” Seymen asked incredulous, wondering what was going on, anxiety building in his chest and restricting his breathing. Alexandra took Morgan’s hands as she stood there stone face, shame, embarrassment, shock, and anger; emotion piled on top of emotion fighting for dominance.

  “Morgan, he came all this way, he has to leave, tell him about Isaiah.” Seymen-Cansin became frozen; words failed him as his mind swam with question after question.

  “Isaiah? Who is it this Isaiah?” Seymen asked, now standing upright, his statuesque frame towering over her as she sat vulnerable to her indiscretions, face to face with her past.

  “Yes, Morgan, tell him who is this Isaiah.” All eyes shot towards the door. No one had heard it open, no one had heard his heavy footfalls, no one had witnessed the crowd that Isaiah had brought with him, coworkers, his son, and his parents who he had decided he would use as leverage to show Morgan his true intention. To show her his love. He held his face hard, his jaw set firm against his usually soft gentle features.

  “Isaiah,” Morgan exclaimed, not able to say anything to ward off the disgrace and humiliation that glowed in his eyes.

  “So this was the big secret Morgan? This is what you couldn’t tell me? That you had someone else, while I toiled and cared for you, all along I was a joke.”

  “It was nothing like that, darling.”

  “Isaiah, calm down, this was all unexpected and . . .” Alexandra was not able to finish her thought.

  “And you knew, didn’t you Alex, you knew all along and I was the laughing stock of your jokes.” He hadn’t moved from the spot where he stood when they first looked up and saw him.

  “She is meine schatz, ich immerr noch hier, it is to say I am here now.” Seymen-Cansin stood towering about Isaiah and looking down at him. Though he was well built, Isaiah outweighed him pound for pound, but his gracious matured demeanor exuded strength, calm, and wisdom. Morgan heard Isaiah laugh like she had never heard him laugh. The laugh was condescending, cynical, sarcastic, and downright rude, she didn’t know he had it in him, another underestimation of the man she had truly grown to love. She was impressed by the deep baritone timbre that reverberated across the room and down her skin causing the hair on her body to prickle.

  “What you laugh at me? I am now here in Amerika one day and now I get to be a joke.” Seymen-Cansin was obviously intimidated and Isaiah’s body hadn’t budged, but his chest heaved beneath his shirt. Overwhelmed by the sight before him he was terrified of what this day would cost him but he was cool under his dress slacks and tailored blazer.

  “Seymen-Cansin, sit please. You don’t understand.” Morgan looked up at them both, her face half covered by the healing scars that strained to come undone under the pressure of the fear that spoke volumes on her face.

  “It’s not what you think, Isaiah.” Alexandra tried to calm the situation.

  “For once Alex, let the woman speak. It is time I hear her. Hear her heart.” He set his face hard and refused to shed a tear. Not now. Not in front of these people whom he had never taken to introduce to a woman; not in front of a white man who had shown superiority and for centuries whose kind have had the best and prime pick of black women; not while his entire existence and his life was on the line; not while he was praying to God that right now in this moment of truth all that he had gambled on wouldn’t fall around him. Not now while he waited for her to finally love him. He searched her eyes for clarity, some way to hold on to the hope that her apprehensiveness was not because all along he just wasn’t young enough or white enough for her.

  Alexandra drew close to Morgan and sat next to her on the sofa where she had not moved for hours as Seymen told his story, she felt the tremor in Morgan’s touch and knew she feared losing Isaiah more than she feared having to take her last breath.

  “I love you,” Morgan uttered so quietly everyone was jerked at attention and almost missed it. She ached to go to him and touch him but her legs were cast and she could not walk. Isaiah’s heart was about to jump out of his chest as he tried to figure out if she had just told the man she had a tryst with that she loved him. He did not hear her correct. Didn’t she realize that he understood confusion, that he too had made mistakes, that a roll in the hay while uncommitted was no crime as long as there is no heavy consequence to bring a lifetime of burden? Didn’t this woman know he would do anything for her?

  He tried not to allow his legs to fall from under him as he looked at her tortured with the agony of defeat, trying to tell her with his very existence that he loved her.

  “I love you, Isaiah,” Morgan said as she slowly raised her frightful eyes to look at him. “I am sorry. I made a mistake and I almost didn’t see the treasure you were until I almost lost me. I found my life again in your love, purpose in a way I never dared to dream.” Tears found her cheeks as they poured freely from her river of grief. Hurt stung at her as she watched the weight of this grown man overpower him as he could no longer stand and he finally fell to his knees.

  “I don’t want to live without you, don’t want to wonder again if I am loved, don’t want to search in the arms of frogs if I have yet to kiss my prince, I only want you.” Isaiah’s relief brought on the tears that his ego wouldn’t allow before and he strained against the gravity of sorrow that was now being ebbed away by his overwhelming joy to reach her. He went to his pocket and pulled the small velvety box from it.

  “Morgan, honey. I have been waiting for so long to hear you say you want me. I had almost given up on whe
ther you might finally remove that naive veil of life from your eyes.” He smiled as he reached her, engulfing her into his massive arms and lifting her from the sofa, bringing her to rest on his legs as he stretched out on the floor. “Marry me, sweetie. Marry me and honor me. Marry me so the rest of my life may finally find purpose in you. Marry me so I can love you in all the ways you want to and ways you never dreamed. Be my wife?” His words came out so hard and fast that he couldn’t breathe when he was finished. He only slipped the ring on her outstretched finger and watched as it slid on in a perfect fit.

  “Yes,” she cooed in his ear and nuzzled her face in his neck. “Yes, I will marry you.”

  “Aren’t you guys supposed to kiss or something?” Isaiah’s fourteen-year-old son quipped shyly. On that note, Morgan looked at her man and gently took his face into her hands and purposely tantalized him with the promise of a kiss, slowly wiping away the tears from his eyes, kissing each eyelid, the tip of his nose, the creases of his forehead before raising his lips to meet hers.

  Alexandra walked over to Seymen, empathy working her over.

  “Are you going to be okay?” She gently rested her hand upon his as a sign of understanding and support. “I know this must be really hard for you.”

  “Oh yes, it is. I only come here now to see her beautiful face. I have it no money, I wait for the police report and I stay in a hostel in a strange country with nobody.” He said the words jerkily but held back his emotions. “I think I go now.” He turned to walk away and was almost out the door through the parted gathering of Isaiah’s entourage.

  “Seymen-Cansin, wait,” Morgan said and looked to her fiancé for support. “I am sorry.” He looked at her and shook his head, then continued walking away.

  “Hey man, one second,” Isaiah said as he gently replaced Morgan to the sofa and walked over to Seymen. “I am not angry. Thank you for being respectful of her wishes.” Isaiah removed his hand from his pocket and came back with a few hundered dollars that he discreetly placed in Seymen-Cansin’s hands. “My car service is still downstairs, I was supposed to go and take the rest of the surprise out. How about I walk you down and the service can take you back to wherever you need to go,” he offered kindly.