My Beautiful Surprise

Mark Holloway groaned as he sat up in bed and reached behind him to touch Madison. It was six o'clock on Saturday morning in Birmingham, Alabama. His hand met only a cool pillow and undisturbed sheets. Then he recalled with an increase in his heartbeat that she was due to arrive at the Birmingham International Airport later in the afternoon. She could do wonders, but she had yet to master the art of being in two places at once.

Since he wanted to be there ahead of time, he forced himself to get out of bed. Better get under way, he muttered to himself, if I'm gonna have time to mow the back yard. She likes that.

He stood up and shambled to the full-length mirror before which he spent the next two minutes staring at himself. It wasn't a prideful thing...he just did it periodically as much to be thankful for what he had as anything else.

There it, or he, was. Six feet and 178 pounds of a thirty-one year old man, attractively proportioned and well-muscled. Madison didn't care for stubble and actually, neither did he. He just despised having to take the brief time to run his Norelco over his face and neck. But everything has a price, he told himself, so I'd better quit whining.

He pulled his wavy black hair over his right shoulder and began to brush it slowly. This was a sensual ceremony he reserved for Saturdays, Sundays and before making love. His mother, Juanita, had ceased cutting his locks at age ten; from that time on neither scissors nor razor touched the lovely mass of black hair that grew with unusual density from his hairline to the nape of his neck. Juanita had kept it shaped at the ends by cutting the mass straight across so that the growth from the front of his scalp was as long as that growing from the nape of his neck.

The effect was an incredibly lovely cape of waves and curls that completely concealed his back and shoulders when he left it unbound. Usually for work he tied it behind his head in a huge pony tail or pinned it in front of his ears with turquoise clips.