The Mardi Gras Queen

1890: Elaine

I roll over again into the crook of his arms. How dark skin shields me against the night as if he was born from it.

It has been a year since I lost my virginity to him. In that time, we have gotten to know much more about each other than the function of our bodies.

I should have been disgusted with him and myself by now. Been convinced by the rhetoric that he only wants me for my body, see the light of day, and move on to a "nicer, whiter" boyfriend.

I sent into the relationship half in love, and half terrified of what would happen - as if having my virginity taken would rip a part of me that would then be lost to me forever.

Ishmael has defied my expectations.

He takes care of me when I am sick, we talk late into the night, and we don't have sex unless we want to. I wouldn't even call it "sex" - it's as if the word implies I'm fulfilling some sort of duty to him or otherwise, he would leave me. I would call it "lovemaking" - though I've heard it only in the whispers of the older women in the hospital, if rarely.

The truth is: I've already conceived. Many, many times.

You may think I'm a horrible person, letting a child go. I should let him go. I should be concerned for the well-being of the mulatto children I am bringing into the world. I am a horrible person.

What other choice do we have?

My grandmother is a straight up racist, and grandfather is an imperial officer in the Ku Klux Klan.

It would mean the end of Ishmael and I, our bodies hung up in the trees, like so many in the south.

All we have now is our little infinity - our nights together.

I've enjoyed being full of his seed. Him sharing in my milk. His baby growing inside of me.

It was hardest with the first. I cried for days. Didn't even want to see him for weeks. I was so much full of mother's love and so scared someone would find out.

With my big and large German frame, absolutely no one figured out. Nobody could tell or when whispered that I may be pregnant.

I entertained the suitors at my coming out party. All the while, my heart lay upstairs where he would await me dutifully.

I have some suspect my sister know. She acts disapproving whenever I am near. Our conversations are brief and short, if hardly at all.

I always put on my best face for my grandmother. Being an excellent hostess and a granddaughter that recites the rosary by heart every morning.

She tells me, "We will have you married off yet."

My grandfather holds onto power greedily. I think that is why he doesn't want to talk to Irene or I at all.

He still believes that women belongs in their place, away from the politics of men. Would kick you out of his house if you even so much mention women voting.

He is the family member that Ishmael most comes into contact with. Ishmael dresses him in the morning as he hears him slur about "his kind" and all that.

It's a wonder that Ishmael can put up with it.

Sometimes, I'm besotted with fury. That Ishmael and I have to love each other in a world like this, but the rest of the world refuses to grow up.