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going over to Peanut. I had a science test to study for. Peanut say he had the same test but wasn’t studying.
    I told him, Right, you getting a athlete’s scholarship. You ain’t got to study.
    Not much, he say. Then he come up real close to me and kissed me right in the mouth. He let his hand real smooth slide down over one of my titties. I was going to brush it away, but I liked the way it made me feel. Like I was tingling inside. Even in my private parts. Peanut turned off real quick and headed down his block and I headed down mine in a hurry. I got to thinking this the same way Miss Odetta come home. She get off the bus right here. If she seen me, she going to tell Mama. I looked around for her, but she wasn’t nowhere around.
    It was something like a whole month before we was doing it. This the thing; I thought I would be too scared to. But Peanut the one make me not scared, even though I think he was.
    We would go down to the family room in the basement. That’s where we still go. To me it look like it’s filled with all the broke-down furniture that lost its chance to be seen upstairs. There’s a chair with a busted bottom, a table with water rings on it, a lamp with a hole in the shade. This big plaid couch with squashed-out cushions.
    Peanut go on a killing spree playing his video games while I put Imani to sleep the way Miss Lovey do. I don’t want her awake and looking at me. I put her in her stroller, and me and Peanut lay down on the couch and kiss with the lights out. That’s all we did at first. I even let him kiss my titties, but I wouldn’t take off my bra. I still don’t. I done told him my titties ugly. They got stretch marks. He say he don’t care. He just want to hold them naked in his hands, and I laugh.
    When he put his tongue in my mouth, he be making these soft noises. His kisses just kept getting better and better to me.
    Where he learn to kiss so good? I ask.
    He say he just born good at it. He a natural born lover.
    I don’t know. Maybe he is. Maybe he was born knowing how to make them noises he making when we kiss. It’s like he saying something to me. Something that go all inside me to the place in me I hardly know. He be making me want to know it. Peanut be finding a way to go in it and say things I hear deep inside me.
    I don’t be scared of him. He ain’t never hurt me. Not even the first time. Peanut always be soft with me. He be fast, too. Like he the one scared. All the while when we be doing it, I be holding him close and listening to the place inside me and I don’t be scared. I be listening so hard while Peanut making them noises in me, I don’t be wanting him to stop.
    Not even that first time. I ain’t want him to stop. I only pulled down my panties and sweats to my knees. My stomach was all tight, and my legs was open just enough for him to do it. His eyelashes was tickling my face and he was steady kissing me. Making them sounds in my mouth, and every time he moved I sunk down deeper in that couch. Deeper and deeper. Listening to him somehow inside. I started crying. Peanut was done by then. It was like a minute. Maybe two. Anyway, it was real quick.
    He switched on the light to see my face, and he ask, What’s wrong? I ain’t hurt you did I, Tasha?
    No, I say him. You ain’t hurt me at all.
    Then why you crying?
    I don’t know, I say. I’m all right. I’m going to be all right.
    I can’t say I love Peanut. He don’t never say he love me, and I don’t never say I love him. I don’t know. Love is something bigger. I do know I love Imani and Mama. I even love Eboni. Peanut. I don’t know. He don’t hurt me. And who know, maybe that’s some kind of love.

THREE
My Mama, Your Mama
    I BEEN INSIDE ME to the place I ain’t never wanted to know. That’s what I was thinking to tell Bett-Bett when she asked me why I wasn’t in school this past week. I say