by Cydney Rax
He wasted no time sliding one hand up and down her smooth leg. Her skin was soft like putty. His fingers sizzled against her skin. She tingled and felt goose bumps. Alita waited for Shade to lift her foot and rub lotion on it or whatever he liked to use.
But soon her feet felt wet. And then her toes were being hungrily pulled into his warm mouth. He sucked and nibbled. She fought to hold back a loud scream. Shade sucked her toes so well she didn’t know what hit her. Him simultaneously sucking her toes and rubbing the back of her thighs felt like seduction overload.
Alita moaned over and over.
And when Shade asked her if it was okay if he removed her top, she nodded quickly.
“Do your thang, baby,” she told him.
It had been so long. So very long since she’d better treated with such tenderness and care by a man. She was more than ready. She wanted to weep when she found herself completely naked in his bed. The breeze from the whirling ceiling fan made her feel chilly. But her loins began to pulsate with heat as she waited for Shade Wilkins to make love to her like she’d never been made love to before. He put his head between her legs. His long tongue found her clit. It was moist and ready for him. He licked and sucked on her slowly and gently. Over and over. She shuddered with each lick. Braced herself to feel what she hadn’t felt in a long time.
“How’s that?”
“Ohhhh,” was the only response she could give to him. As he continued sucking on her, Alita got weaker and weaker. She gripped his head with both her hands, squeezing him so mightily she wondered if she hurt him. Alita’s eyes rolled to the back of her head. When she came, she let go of his head and beat the mattress with both of her hands. Slapping it repeatedly, shaking, trembling, moaning, and wishing for that grand old feeling to last forever.
It took a few minutes of huffing and puffing for her to reluctantly admit that her orgasm had run its course. And after it was done, she gladly returned the favor. She took him in her mouth and gave him the best head he ever had. He smelled fresh and clean, and his penis was in good working order. Stiff and rigid, just the way Alita liked it. They fell into each other’s arms pleasuring each other for the next hour. It felt so good not to have to worry about exes and legal issues, family problems, and being broke.
After it was over, Alita couldn’t believe what had happened. . . that Cupid took his arrow and sneaked upon her in the sneaky way that he did. And she knew by the way she was blushing that she’d developed feelings for a man who seemed to care about her the way that she cared about him.
“Thank you for that,” she told him. “I needed that.”
“We both did.”
“Mmm, that’s good to know,” she told him, realizing it meant that his love was reserved for her and her alone. And the fact that Shade was a generous lover made Alita’s heart feel emotions she had thought long dead.
“Why did you do that to me? Huh? Can you tell me why you did it, please, sir?”
“Do what?”
“That!” she said. “All that stuff that you did.”
“What’d I do?”
“That toe-licking thing. Oh, my God.”
He laughed.
“You made me feel happiness,” Alita continued. “Made me feel something besides disgust and anger and ugliness. You even make me think different than I’ve thought. So why did you do all that?”
She sounded so very serious that Shade was momentarily confused. Alita seemed almost bipolar with how her feelings jumped from one end of the spectrum to another.
“Look, I was just being myself, Alita. I-I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Are you crazy?”
“Me, crazy?” Shade laughed. “If I’m still with you, after what you’ve shown me, then maybe I am.”
Then he kissed Alita. She adored his kiss. It was sincere, meaningful, and it lingered. They continued exploring each other’s mouths, and she let him suck her tongue for as long as he wanted. When she came up for air, she gasped then said, “I like that. Kiss me again.” And he did, this time with even more fervency. She lay there wanting that very experience to repeat itself.
She sighed and held his hand.
“What you thinking about?” he asked.
“I hate when a man asks me what I’m thinking. Why you want to know? What can I tell you that I haven’t already told your ass?”
He shrugged. “Yep, you’re crazy.”
“Shade, I have enjoyed myself so much, but you know how my mind gets to going here and there.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
“And like that singer Bobby Womack once said, “Everybody wants love but everybody is afraid of love.”
“Are you in love? Is that what you’re saying but haven’t yet told me, Alita?”
“I ain’t saying shit.”
“You know what? By the look on your face you really don’t have to say anything.” And he kissed her again.
Alita kept most of what she wanted to say on the inside. Good love felt good. And she liked the connection.
Unable to get her to open up any further, Shade excused himself to go use the restroom.
While she lay there and waited, one part of her wanted to get completely relaxed. But another tiny part of her wondered if she should search for her bra and panties and begin getting dressed. Go find her purse and car keys and be prepared to say goodbye so she wouldn’t wear out her welcome. That’s how this thing normally worked.
Before she knew it, Alita stood up; she was operating on female autopilot, trying to find her panties.
“Um, Alita?” Shade said after he returned from the bathroom.
Afraid, Alita was tempted to cover her ears in anticipation.
But Shade said nothing. He crawled into bed, then patted the empty side right next to him. She beamed again, then crawled into his arms and rested her head on his broad shoulder.
“Wow! Fucking church men!” she said with a loud laugh.
He cracked up too. Then he told her, “Ahh, don’t even try it. Don’t put labels on me. I’m a man.”
“That you are.”
“And you’re a woman. A very desirable woman. Sexy. Interesting. Real. Hey, I couldn’t help myself, Alita. And even if I wanted to help myself, it would have been hard.”
“It was hard, baby, it was nice and hard. And you know how to work that thang too.”
He laughed again. And Alita wanted to relax. Hearing his casualness made her want to let go of any anxiety. But when would an ax fall and chop off her head? Carve away the present happiness from inside her heart?
There were no guarantees about what would happen after a moment of pleasure, but Alita definitely wanted it again. She already believed that Shade Wilkins wanted the same.
CHAPTER 12
He Maketh Me to Lie Down
The Lord’s Day started out looking the same way it always did. The sun shone as bright as ever with the promise of a glorious day.
Burgundy was in her gourmet kitchen stating directives to her daughters.
“Sid! Natalia! Put away your cereal dishes. Rinse them out good and make sure all of the Fruity Pebbles go down into the garbage disposal. Don’t just leave any of ’em in the sink. And set the bowls in the dishwasher for now. Then go brush your teeth. And floss, rather you may try to floss, Nat. Count to sixty and then you’re done.”
“We already brushed, Mommy,” Natalia complained.
“That was before breakfast. Brush them again. I don’t want your breath to smell like sour milk. Do as I say then go wait for me in the corridor. We’re running late and I hope there’s no traffic on Forty-five.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Her daughters scurried off like obedient children. The kids bounded up the back staircase while Burgundy dashed off to her own bedroom.
As soon as she entered, she glanced at her bed. A large lump covered by a thick black-and-white comforter took over one side. Burgundy heard Nate snoring. She felt bad about needing to interrupt his sleep. But she put one knee on their bed an
d told him, “Nate, sweetie. I’m about to head out. I’m supposed to teach a class this morning, and I-I want my journal. I wrote notes in it. Have you seen it? The cloth journal?”
He moaned. She saw him shift underneath the cover. The clock was ticking.
“Wow, some people are so lucky,” she said teasingly. “They get to sleep in on a Sunday.”
“I’ll see you at the usual time,” he mumbled. “I don’t know where your journal is.”
“Shoot! All right.” Burgundy opened a drawer and rummaged through a pile of wallets, Day Timers, stylus pens, and cell phone chargers. She found what she was looking for and grabbed it.
“Found it. Thank God. I’m going to have to really step on it. See you later? Maybe we’ll meet up for brunch today? I’ll text you.”
Burgundy closed the door behind her and collected the rest of her things. Then she rounded up the girls; they were all loaded into the SUV and were soon headed for the eight o’clock service.
“Oh, shoot,” she muttered to Natalia once she drove a mile away. “Mommy’s getting old. I forgot to ask Elyse if she wanted to ride with us. I hope Nate remembers to bring her.”
Burgundy kept driving. She forgot about how she had rejected Nate’s sexual advances the night before. She concentrated on the biblical class she was about to teach. Topic? “Three Ways to Manage Stress.”
Burgundy headed for the church and imagined herself teaching a room of one hundred people. She smiled to herself and promptly dismissed Elyse from her mind.
Unbeknownst to her, the youngest Reeves girl was tucked away in her bedroom, which was located down the hall from her nieces’ room. It was the room closest to the back stairwell.
Elyse had suffered a difficult night, tossing and turning in bed, and she’d fallen asleep at two in the morning. Now, hours later, her brain still felt fuzzy, her body exhausted.
A large black Bible rested on top of her head. It was opened to the twenty-third psalm. Its soft onionskin pages touched her face . . . from the top of her forehead to the bottom of her chin. Her Bible was exactly where she’d carefully placed it the night before when she had said a prayer and then tried to go to sleep. The book was so big and heavy she could barely breathe underneath it.
Right then she took a deep breath, hoping to fall back asleep. But she heard a sharp knock on her door. She pulled the blanket over her head and waited.
Even though she’d locked the door, in seconds it was opened and then closed. Elyse clammed up. She took in tiny, sharp breaths. Her heart pounded so wildly she just knew he could hear her. She thought hard about what to do, how to escape.
The floor squeaked as light footsteps approached her bed. Then it grew eerily silent.
“She’s gone,” he whispered. “She’s not here anymore.” The fact that he whispered when he knew his wife wasn’t in the house always made her tremble uncontrollably.
“Get up.”
Elyse dreaded the domineering sound of Nate’s voice.
“Come on. I want to see you. Stop hiding from me.”
He tried to sound welcoming, but Elyse crouched further in the bed. All she could hear was that creepy way he sounded whenever he talked to her. He stepped closer to the bed and shook her leg. She smelled the sweaty aroma of his body, felt his presence, and quivered.
“Hurry up. I gotta get ready to go.”
She knew he meant he had to go to church. She couldn’t fathom how a man like Nate could attend church.
Nate reached out and felt underneath the cover till his hand touched the top of her head.
The Bible was pulled off her face; she heard it drop to the floor. He removed the blanket and looked at Elyse.
“What were you doing with that?” he asked.
Elyse wore an oversize baseball hat with her hair stuffed inside of it. Nate pulled the cap off and tossed it on the floor. “I hate when you wear that. Get up.”
“Sick,” she whispered.
“You’re not sick.” He continued to smile down at her with his painted-on grin.
He reached over and touched her hand. Nate’s hand felt wet and slimy with moisture. He tugged at her tiny fingers and pulled on them until he got her to stand up. She whimpered as he led her from the bed to the large walk-in closet. Even though it was oversize, it still felt tiny. She hated feeling closed in like that.
He pointed to the carpeted floor.
“Lie down.”
She shook her head.
“It won’t take long,” he told her. When she failed to respond, Nate grabbed Elyse by the shoulders and gently forced her to the floor.
He licked his lips and started removing his favorite flannel sleep pants. He wore no underwear. He reached in between the opening of his pajamas, gripped his penis and started stroking it.
Elyse started shaking and whimpering.
“Why you gotta act all scared?”
She knew he didn’t expect her to answer. She sat cross-legged in the closet, trying to be as still as possible so Nate could remove all of her layered clothing. His entire presence blocked the door of the closet. He was tall and thick. She was petite and weighed less than 110 pounds. She knew there was no way she could get up and run past his body, run out of the bedroom, and escape down the stairs.
Elyse was wearing a long-sleeved flannel top that buttoned at the neck. Nate’s hands were sweating as he unbuttoned it and removed her top. She wore another shirt, and he promptly took that one off too. He made her lie on her back so he could pull down her pants. Then he tugged at her cotton underwear.
“You could comb your hair sometimes and wear some makeup. What? You got something against looking pretty?”
Elyse didn’t understand. Why would she want to look pretty for him? She didn’t reply. She felt rigid and hideous under the glare of his glassy eyes.
The tips of her fingers felt like icicles; so did her feet.
She closed her eyes tight.
She recited scripture in her mind:
The Lord is my shepherd
I shall not want
He maketh me to lie down
He maketh me to lie down
Hot tears poured from her eyes. She waited.
Nate forced her to lie on her back. She froze up the second she felt his grubby hand advance up her thigh.
“Stop acting like a little girl. You’re grown,” he whispered. “Nice and grown.”
She whimpered. He ignored her and moved his hand from her thigh to her inner thigh. From her inner thigh to her vagina.
His fingers felt cold as ice and hard as nails. He fumbled around, pinching her vagina lips together, then stuck his middle finger inside of her. She wished her legs were a large pair of scissors. She imagined herself closing her legs tighter together, slamming them shut and slicing off her brother-in-law’s hands. In her head, she could hear Nate screaming from the pain. But the screaming noise frightened her. She eliminated her dark thoughts. She lay there allowing her mind to go blank.
“I got to have it,” Nate told her. “Do you know how your sister treats me? Yeah, you know. You pretend like you don’t know what’s going on, like you can’t see how she is sometimes. Stingy. And she calls me stingy. I give her everything. Everything a woman could want. What does she give me? She acts like she loves me, but sometimes I don’t know.”
Nate’s hot breath brushed across Elyse’s cheeks. He had wedged his penis in her by then, and his mouth was close to her ears, speaking to her as if she gave a damn about anything he had to say.
“She might hate me,” he went on to say. “And I know she hates you. That’s why if you tried and tell her any of your business, anything about what’s happening in your life, she won’t care. She got too much going on to care about anything except the stuff already on her plate. Our house could be engulfed in flames. She wouldn’t notice.”
Elyse’s legs felt stiff as two poles. She grunted and bit the inside of her cheeks. Soon she tasted salt, the evidence that she bit herself way too hard this time.
Nate pumped inside of Elyse’s tiny, fragile, skinny, broken body.
How can he do this to me?
Why is he doing this?
She shifted when his body almost crushed her ribs. It was so hard to breathe. But maybe that was the point. Maybe he could smother her to death. She shut her eyes even tighter. Prepared herself to die.
But she didn’t die. She just kept getting punished. The harder Nate thrust inside of her, punching against her sore vagina like he was outraged, the more she could see Burgundy’s face.
What if sister catches us? Would he stop? Would she finally help? Would her closed eyes stay closed? Nate let out a loud moan that sounded like a scared animal.
Is he stupid? My sister might come back any minute. Is he crazy?
Nate yelled louder. The sounds he made caused her to start coughing uncontrollably. She could feel the tingly sensation of her legs falling asleep. She jerked around a bit, hoping he’d get the hint.
This hurts. Please stop. Leave me the hell alone.
Nate breathed in and out, like he was out of breath. His penis had been soft, then grew harder for a few minutes. Now it lay limp again. But Nate kept pumping into her, wasting his time and energy.
Elyse grinded her teeth together and tried not to feel anything.
“My, my, my,” he said in a satisfied voice. “You feel so good, baby girl. I love this. I love this so much. I need this.”
He looked at her face, saw her cheeks covered with tears.
“You must like this too, huh? I knew you’d like the way I make love to you. We need each other, baby girl. All we got is each other.”
Elyse felt bile rise up in her throat. She wished she could let it out. Spit it out all over him. But she swallowed her hurt till it plunged back down her throat.
She waited and let Nate do what he did every Lord’s Day. She thought about a Sister Day assignment. About telling the truth.
Sister needs to know truth. But she can’t. She’d hate me. She’d blame me. I know she would. She’d make me leave. Then where would I go?
Truth hurt.
Truth ugly.
