“He’s been acting different, strange. I tried to have sex with him just to make sure I wasn’t tripping and he didn’t go for it. He’s never turned my sex down. I know he’s cheating.”
I took a sip of my white chocolate mocha. “Or, maybe he knows you are.”
She was quiet a moment. I could hear the noise in her background letting me know she was at work. “How would he know? I’m very careful about you and me.”
I could hear the panic laced in her voice. If he knew what she and I had been doing all hell would break loose. Her husband was a prideful man and to find out about our affair would cause pandemonium in their perfectly built life.
“Maybe not as careful as you think. If I were you I’d make sure he doesn’t know about the condo or our visits there.”
She sighed and moved around a bit. Her voice dropped lower, which meant she was around her coworkers and wanted no one to know she was talking on the phone.
“Look, I don’t care about any of that. I need you. Can I see you? Please? We’ll worry about him later,” she said to me.
I thought for a second and listened to the shaking of her voice. “Okay. I’ll be there by eight.”
“Thank you, Vix. Don’t stand me up this time. Please. I really need to see you.”
The pleading and sincerity in her voice made me smile. Like I said before, no matter how she talked to me and no matter the pain she caused me, I couldn’t leave her and she wouldn’t let me go.
As soon as I hung up the phone with her all we had said was forgotten. Mr. Rodriguez walked through the doors of Barnes & Noble. There was no smile on his face and I could tell things between him and his wife hadn’t gotten any better. He was brief and easily annoyed in class. He wasn’t the cool, calm, and collected teacher he’d been previously. He spotted me and his upper lip twitched in response. I watched him walk over and sit at the opposite side of the table from me.
“First things first, I’m only here because you said you needed help. You failed the test so what can I help you with?” he asked all of that while the stern look on his face said he’d rather be somewhere else.
“Stop playing. You know damn well I failed that test on purpose. I could have aced it with my eyes closed.”
He leaned forward, pressing his elbows on the table. “So what the fuck do you want? Stop playing with me.”
“I feel as if you’re taking your anger out on me because there’s trouble in paradise ...”
“Your games caused all of this.”
“The games you played along with and fell for. You could have easily told me you couldn’t make it to help me. You noticed how I looked at you in class and it piqued your interest, so you stop playing.”
His leg was shaking under the table as he looked at me, biting down and licking his lips in frustration. “I told you whatever you want to happen, or think is going to happen, it’s not going to happen. Now stop before I have to go to the dean and report you.”
I laughed. “Go ahead. It won’t go the way you like.”
We simply stared at each other for a minute. I already had him hook, line, and sinker and I knew it was only a matter of time before I reeled him in.
“Come on,” I said to him again. “She already thinks you’re fucking me. So let’s make it a reality. That’s all I want anyway. Trust me when I tell you I can keep secrets.”
His eyes squinted and his face frowned a bit. “What the fuck is wrong with you? I think you need some help.”
I laughed loudly, causing people to turn and look at us. “Why? Because I know what I want and am not afraid to go after it? What’s the big deal? It’s only sex right? That’s all I want.”
He rubbed his nose and spoke to me through clenched teeth. “I told you I am not cheating on my wife.”
“Again?”
He pursed his lips and sat back. “I’m done. I’m leaving.”
I watched as he stood and grabbed his laptop bag. I smiled and waved. He quickly left and never looked back. I smiled. He’d be back to see me. I was sure of it. Closing my laptop, I put it away and prepared to leave myself. Before leaving I ordered myself another white chocolate mocha and made my way to my hotel room to wait for my lover’s husband. Some men were so easy to manipulate.
It didn’t take me long to make it to my room, after stopping at Southlake Mall and running into Frederick’s of Hollywood. I needed to purchase a few things to make me feel good about myself. By the time I made it to my room, I could tell he was already there. The shower was already running. Bags of clothes and shoes were laid around the room and in the middle of the bed lay an envelope with a key on top. I quickly dropped my shopping bags and rushed to the bed, picking up the key then opening the envelope. I squealed and jumped when I looked at the piece of paper. Fuck an apartment or a condo. This damn fool had gotten me a house on Lake Spivey.
I threw everything back on the bed, ran into the bathroom, and jumped into the shower with him, clothes and shoes still on. He held me up when I jumped around his waist.
“I take it you approve?” he asked after I’d kissed him.
“Yes. Yes. And, yes! Thank you so much. I really need to get out of this room.”
“I know and I’m happy you like it.”
I looked down into his face. Sexy as he wanted to be and in that moment I remembered another reason I’d gone after him. His heart was just as big as his bank account. Deciding that I needed to show him just how appreciative I was, I slid down and dropped to my knees. It didn’t take me long to get him where he loved to be and I was enjoying myself too until some of his come accidently splashed on my face. My mood immediately sank when I felt it splash on my jaw and near my eye.
I screamed and stood quickly, grabbed the soap and towel, scrubbing my face. I scrubbed my face until I made it tender to the touch. He stood back and watched for a moment, not sure of what had happened or how to fix it.
“Damn, Vix, what’s wrong? What did I do?”
I pushed him away from me and stepped out of the shower dripping wet. I didn’t even realize I’d been crying. I snatched the bathroom door open and stormed out, pulling my wet clothes off in the process. He came after me, still wet, dick swinging, and confusion written on his face.
“Don’t you ever, ever do that shit again. Do not put your come on me.”
“Why not? Where else was I to put it?”
I shoved him and he stumbled on the bag sitting behind him, but caught his balance, grabbed me by both my wrists, and threw me on the bed. Some of the shopping bags fell on the floor when I quickly got back up and tried to punch him in the face. I was no match for his brute strength I knew, but I was pissed and tried to fight him anyway. I was mad that he’d brought back a memory for me that I hated.
“You fucking asshole,” I screamed as I tried to hit him again before he pushed me down, putting his hand over my mouth and the other around my throat.
“You better chill the fuck out, or I will leave your ass limp in this fucking room. Fuck is wrong with you, huh?”
The fact that I knew he carried a gun silenced me and made me stop screaming. My vision was blurry because of tears.
“Now you think if I let you go, you can talk to me and tell me what’s wrong instead of acting like you’ve lost your damn mind?” he asked as he looked down at me.
I nodded.
“Good. You almost kicked me in my dick. I would have fucked you up if you had.”
He removed both of his hands and sat down on the bed. I lay there trying to get myself together. Maybe I was wrong for coming at him the way I had, but all I could think about was when I was twelve years old and Mike had literally taken my virginity. He’d made a sport of coming all over my face and body. His dick was a gun, his come were the bullets, my body and face he made targets. Because of that, I hated for a man’s semen to get on any part of my body that wasn’t my vagina, which was probably why I just preferred to swallow it. I even hated the sight of come. I’d told my lover’s husband as much as
I lay there. He sat and he listened to me before saying anything. There were times his face frowned and he looked as if he was disgusted.
“What did your mom do about him?” he asked me.
“I never told her until about a year or so later.”
“What did she do? What happened to this motherfucker ?”
“He’s in prison. My mom and I set him up to get caught with some of his own product and another underage girl.”
“How long did he get?”
“He took a plea deal for the drugs and got fifteen years.”
He sat silent for a moment as he listened. After a while he turned to look at me. “I’m sorry that happened to you and what I did won’t happen again.”
The expression on his face was blank as he stood and started to get dressed. I didn’t even question why he was leaving. In fact I was happy he was leaving. He’d made me show a weakness and I hated to show weakness. . . to any man.
I lay there after he left, feeling like I was useless and nothing. Tears flowed out of the corners of my eyes as childhood memories started to play for me. After a while, I’d even started to hate my name. Once Shonda had gotten wind of what Mike and I had been doing, he’d started to get violent, especially during times of sex when he was high. He would call me his little vixen, his personal little slut. I was told I’d never be able to have children because of what he did to my body the last time, the time that I couldn’t hide it from my mother any longer.
It was after the fight between her and Shonda had gone down. She’d come home early, but five minutes too late to catch Mike on top of me.
“Vix!” she called out to me as the front door slammed.
I wanted to answer but couldn’t. I’d tried to fight Mike off of me and he punched me in my jaw so hard, it felt as if my jaw had come unhinged. I could hear her moving around in the front room as I lay in my bed, balled in a fetal position. Mike had been high and drunk; otherwise, he wouldn’t have done it, nor would he have left any evidence that he’d been in my mom’s home.
“Vix,” she called out again.
I could hear her voice getting closer and closer as she talked to herself. “If that girl is out with those damn fast-ass girls again, I’ma kick her ass good.”
I still lay there unable to move or talk. Mike had fucked me rough. He’d pushed my legs so far back I’d thought they would break. He banged and pumped, all the while I screamed, cried, and begged him to stop. It felt as if he’d knocked something loose and no matter how I tried, I couldn’t move. Every time I tried, it hurt so bad that I was just forced to stay balled up. My mom finally pushed my room door open. She was about to say something until she looked at my swollen, bloodied face, the blood on the white sheets, and me looking up at her with tears in my eyes.
She screamed and ran to me. “Vix, what the hell happened? Who did this baby? Tell Mama who did this to you. Oh my God. Oh my God.”
She kept screaming that over and over as she pulled the white sheet from tangled around me and pulled me up in her arms. I tried to cry out in pain but my jaw wouldn’t let me. Luckily my moans and groans let her know she was hurting me. She left me there and ran to our front door. I could hear her screaming for help and I could hear people running down the hall to her. Luckily my mom was well liked around the way because she fed and kept most of the block boys’ secrets.
“Call 911 for me. Somebody raped my baby,” I heard her scream at someone. All I heard were feet running and scrambling, sounding like a thousand hooves of horses running for our apartment as my mom came back in the room with me.
“Who did this, Vix, baby? Who did it?”
Her face was red and soaked with tears as she looked down at me. I looked up and saw Shonda standing in the doorway of my room.
“Oh my God,” she yelled out.
She and my mom had become friends again by then. I quickly looked from her to my mom, hoping she could read my eyes. I could hear the sirens in the distance and it wasn’t long before the meat wagon arrived. All the while my mom only wanted to know who’d done this to me. I looked at Shonda again and my mom’s eyes widened.
“Mike?”
I looked at Shonda and she stood there with her mouth open and shock written across her face.
“Mike did this to you, Vix?” my mom asked again and again I looked at Shonda to answer her.
The next couple of things to happen were like a whirlwind. The EMTs came in and took me away, I stayed in the hospital for seven days, and word around the block was that Mike had been taken care of.
I’d lied to my lover’s husband. No way would I tell anyone what really happened when I left the hospital, or my mom would lose everything. Mike wasn’t in prison. Mike wasn’t even alive.
When my mom came to pick me up from the hospital we drove home. My mom didn’t say anything to me the whole drive.
I said earlier that my mom had a hair-trigger temper, and she proved to me just what Flatbush had taught her that day.
We pulled in to park and walked upstairs, bypassing our apartment. I could feel something was funny. Block boys lined the hall of the fifth floor of building 260. Block boys were what we called the boys who ran the block, the dope game. They all looked at me and my mom and nodded as we passed. My mom knocked once on Mike and Shonda’s apartment.
A boy I only knew as Sig opened the door and let me and my mom in. Shonda was sitting on the couch, looking as if she feared for her life. Tears and slobber ran down her face and nose. Two other block boys accompanied her on the couch as she sat with her head hanging down. When my mom walked in she looked up at me and the look on her face scared me. There was something akin to anger, resentment, and hate as she looked at me. The house was dark and quiet except for some cartoons playing on the TV and the laughter of a few of the block boys, as my mom and I walked to Shonda’s bedroom. I already knew where it was because I’d been in her room and in her bed countless times.
When my mom knocked on the room door, it was opened by another block boy and there was Mike. He sat tied to a chair. His face was bloodied and he was shirtless. His whole body was drenched in blood and, judging by the looks on a few of the guys faces, they’d enjoyed beating him as he sat there. I watched as my mom laid her purse on the bed after pulling out a pair of black leather gloves.
She kneeled in front of Mike. “I want you to know that I only kept you alive this long so that my baby can be the last face you sees before you die. She told me all the shit you been doing to her. Did you think I would let you live afterward, motherfucker?”
He spit in my mom’s face. “Fuck you and that li’l bitch. She liked that shit. Ask her about all of the shit I bought her. Ask her ’bout how she liked to suck a nigga dick to get what she wanted. Fuck you and that li’l slut.”
He spit in her face again. She cringed back and stood. One of the boys in the room hit him so hard I swear I saw his jaw crack and move.
“Fuck this nigga up, Dullah,” I heard another block boy say as the one they called Dullah punched him again.
He kept punching him until the chair fell over and Mike looked as if he was already dead.
“Sit him back up,” my mom said to him.
He did what she asked but only after kicking him in the face with his steel-toe Timberlands. I watched as my mom pulled out a pair of latex gloves and handed them to me.
“Put these on,” she said to me.
I didn’t ask any questions. I was too afraid, but there was something else that I found out about myself that day. I found that I liked the power my mom had over all those men in the room and in the hall. I didn’t have any power with Mike and my mom did. Once I pulled on the gloves, she took my hand and we stood on the left side of the chair that Mike sat in. The block boy named Dullah pulled out a gun, handing it to my mom.
“Yo, blow that nigga’s wig the fuck back, Tammi,” another one in the room said as others laughed and encouraged her.
My mom kept a calm face as she made me stand in front of her bef
ore putting the gun in my hand. I looked up at her, shaking my head.
“Mama, what are you doing? I don’t want to do this,” I pleaded with her.
“Yes, you do and you will. You will do to this motherfucker what he did to you. He violated you. Took your innocence, so you take his life. Fair exchange is no robbery.”
She stood behind me. With her hand surrounding mine we placed the gun to his head. I watched as Mike came to and his eyes widened in the realization he was about to die.
“Come ... come on, Tam,” he pleaded.
His mouth and jaw were so swollen we could barely make out what he was saying after that. My mom leaned forward and spit in his face. Most of the boys in the room laughed. I stood there, feeling as if my world were tilting. It was only seconds but it felt like hours. My mom cocked the gun back and pulled the trigger using my hand. Blood splattered onto us as Mike’s body slumped in the chair and Shonda’s sobbing got louder. A hole sat in the left side of Mike’s head as I heard someone slap Shonda across the face, telling her to shut the fuck up or she would be next. Dullah took the gloves and gun from me and my mom before he walked us out of the building.
Chapter 5
I hated to relive that part of my life because it reminded me of a time when I had no power. Never again would I allow a man to do that to me, which is why I so enjoyed the game of making a man do whatever it was I wanted him to. My lover’s husband had just bought me a house, deed in my name, and handed me the key. Power. I made him cheat on his wife, something he’d never done before. Power. And only I had the power to give my power away. That’s why I was so upset with him for coming on my face. It felt as if he’d taken me back to the time I had no power.
I pulled myself together after a few hours and made my way to my new house. I was pleased with the neighborhood and it made me feel like I was on an episode of Cribs. My smile widened when I saw that my house was the only one that sat in a cul-de-sac at the end of the street. Stone and brick made up the outside of my new home. I was so excited I just parked my car and ran to unlock the door. Needless to say my new home was all that and more than I expected. It took me a few minutes to explore the whole house. Four bedrooms, two and half baths, big den, kitchen, and front room, it was two stories, and came equipped with a balcony and patio. And it was all mine. It took me a couple of trips back and forth to the hotel to move all of my stuff over after making sure the electricity and gas were already on. He’d already taken care of all of those things for me.
Girls From da Hood 7 Page 13
