Jim and Louella's Homemade Heart-Fix Remedy

CHAPTER ONE Discovery "Possibilities are like promises: they only work if you work them." It all started when Jim couldn't get it up. I guess I should find another way to say it, but we just country folks, so that's how we put it. That was two months ago, and he been 'fraid to try ever since. Anyway, we'd been married for twenty-six years and have had more than our share of it in the love department. We youngish still, me somewhere at the end of my fifties and Jim starting in his sixties. We got a lot of love left. I told Jim just that, but it didn't help none. In all our years of marriage and the three before, I've never seen him so upset. Jim has lots of pride and he don't like the idea of not being able to do his business, so I stopped trying to talk sense into him and did the next best thing. Now, I've learned years before not to take stock in none of those women's magazines. Their sex tips usually include food or Saran Wrap, and Jim didn't like nothing too messy. He say the only thing he wants wet is me. Anyway, whenever things were tough with me and Jim, I pray that God will give me strength, make me humble, and show me where I'm wrong. Then, I talk to the ancestors. I talk to them like they still alive too, but I do it in my sleep and they always know the answers. This time I call on the women: my mama, Aunt T, and Grandma Sadie. They a hoot. Mama say, "Hey, girl, don't say a word. We know just why we here." "Uh-huh," Aunt T say. "Jim can't do the do." Grandma Sadie tell her to hush. She say, "Your man weren't too good no time." She say it's better to have a man who have it but lose it all the way once, than to have one who never lose it, but only halfway does it the rest of the time. Now, I laugh. Grandma Sadie tell me that our problem is that Jim and me done got way too comfortable with each other. She notice we hit it every Wednesday and sometimes on Sunday (depending on how good my fried chicken is). Until then, I didn't know about that connection, but I vow to take more time with Sunday dinner from that point on. Mama say, "Girl, you need to spice things up a bit. Fix your hair and put on a little makeup." Mama know that I ain't into nothing too fancy, but I remind her anyway. Aunt T say I need to learn some other positions. She say I got the wife and the mother part down pat, but I need to be a bit more whorish in the bedroom. Grandma Sadie say, "Hush up, good loving ain't in no makeup, and it certainly ain't in no slutty ways. If the man want a whore, he'd pay one." Grandma Sadie say the loving in the bedroom is in all the things you do before you get there. She also say me and Jim are real good to each other, better than most, but we need to find one another all over again. I ask her what she mean, and she say, "Girl, when the last time you rubbed that man's behind?" Before I can act shocked or tell her "never," she say, "Uh-huh, that's what I'm talking about. Jim knows what he got, and he thinks he knows how he likes it. What makes a man hot is making his woman hot. He thinks he knows just what to touch and how to touch it. In all the years you've been married and all the time you were sneaking around before, Jim ain't had to figure out too much. He made you happy in bed because he made you happy in life, but girl, there's a lot more you should be doing." At that point I want to ask what, but I hear Jim getting up so I do too. I roll over and see Jim lying on his stomach. I can tell that he's feeling badly because it's Wednesday, and in the morning he's usually feeling like he want it. Most times, but not always, he gets it too. Usually, I wait for him to come to me, but this time I go to him. I rub Jim's behind slow and soft at first. I hear him moaning real low. "Mmm baby, that feels good," he say.Berry, Bertice is the author of 'Jim and Louella's Homemade Heart-Fix Remedy' with ISBN 9780385503778 and ISBN 0385503776.