“By the way, I’m Jake.”
“Sandy,” she lied.
They shook hands, and it looked like a bond was made.
Tamar tossed the shot down her throat and smiled his way. She was flirtatious and touchy-feely with him, which gave him the confidence to place his hand against her thigh and massage between her legs. She let it slide, knowing he was a pervert.
“Excuse me, I have to use the ladies’ room,” she said. She removed herself from his presence and went into the bathroom.
She wasn’t even in the bathroom a minute before a young lady approached her while she checked her image in the mirror.
“Be careful around him,” the girl warned. “He’s bad news. He’s a monster.”
Tamar looked at the petite, young woman and already knew she’d had a bad incident with Jake. Rape and abuse, maybe. Whatever it was, she took it upon herself to warn Tamar. But Tamar already knew what she was getting into.
Tamar smirked at the girl. “Sweetheart, I don’t need any warnings. I can handle myself, and I can handle him.” She pivoted away from the girl and walked away. She wasn’t a weak bitch and was ready to show it.
She met up with Jake again. “You wanna get out of here?”
He quickly nodded, uttering out, “Hells, yeah!” He dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the bar countertop and couldn’t wait to get to his place fast enough.
He slid into a beat-up pickup truck, and she climbed into her Volvo. She followed him to his home in West End, Boston, a vibrant, ethnically diverse neighborhood tucked behind Beacon Hill. On Storrow Drive, a sign outside the West End Condominiums and Apartments read: If you lived here, you’d be home now.
Tamar paid close attention to her surroundings, like she was trained to do. She was by the river, and it seemed like a quiet neighborhood. She continued driving behind the pickup, which finally came to a stop in front of a building that looked like it had been nice in the past, but needed some urgent repairs. She parked close to the pickup and stepped out, swiveling her head from left to right, looking and watching.
Jake climbed out of his truck and said, “Home sweet home.”
It was far from home, but it would do.
Before she could step inside the building, Jake was already becoming an octopus, touching and grabbing private places. Tamar played along, transitioning into a meek, flirtatious character, giggling and laughing. Up close, he was a big and solid dude, so she knew, once inside his apartment, anything goes.
Inside his place was a train wreck. The place was messy and sparsely furnished with tattered couches, a rickety table, frayed carpeting, and exposed wiring. The walls were peeling off, and an odor of stale cigarette smoke lingered. The master bedroom had a soiled mattress in the corner near the window and dilapidated dressers with missing drawers, and the bathroom didn’t have a toilet seat.
He shut the door and locked it. He smiled waywardly her way, grabbing his crotch. “You ready to have some fun? You’re the prettiest girl I ever brought here.” He was already unzipping his jeans.
Tamar stood in the center of the living room, looking assertive and ready. She was far from flattered by his statement, but she expected this type of behavior from him.
“And what if I say no . . . let’s just talk, get to know each other.”
“Talk? I know you didn’t come here to talk. And the best way for me to get to know you is being inside you.”
“Oh, really?”
He pulled out his flaccid dick. He was hung like a horse, but that didn’t impress Tamar. He stepped closer, stroking his flaccid penis into a long, hard erection, licking his lips.
Tamar took a few steps back from his threatening approach. He’d done this before, rape or forced entry. She knew any unfortunate girl he brought back to his apartment didn’t leave until she had a hard dick thrust inside of her.
He unhooked his belt and came closer. “I knew the minute I saw you, I wanted you. I know that pussy is tight and nice for Jake,” he said, referring to himself in the third person. “Let me see that body.”
“And once again, what if I said no?” Tamar said evenly, toying with him.
His lecherous smile could send fear through any woman, but Tamar remained cool and reserved. He went for her, reaching out for her arm suddenly, his hard dick still gripped in his fist as he jerked himself off.
Tamar stepped back quickly, just barely out of his grasp.
“You think you have a choice? I know you’re teasing me, bitch,” he growled. “You wanna fuck; you wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t. You know what it is.”
“Let’s play a game.”
“A game?”
“Yes, a game,” she repeated, smirking his way.
“The only game I’m interested in is the one between your legs.”
“Well, unless you play this game with me, then you can’t have me.”
He chuckled with a steely glare at her. “Bitch, I don’t have time to play games. I wanna fuck you.”
“You can’t have me.”
“Oh, you think?”
He lunged toward her, but Tamar swiftly sidestepped his charge, tripped him up, and sent him stumbling forward into the couch.
He was clearly embarrassed.
“You ready to play my game?” she repeated calmly.
“Fuck your game!”
“Then you can’t fuck me.”
Jake stood up and charged at her again. Tamar foiled his attack again, spinning around and kicking him in the back, sending him flying into the floor.
“You’re a big boy,” she said. “A girl needs to be careful around you.”
Jake screamed from pure frustration.
“Now, are you ready to play my game?” she asked simply, grinning down at him.
He stood up and towered over her. Scowling, he clenched his fists, his eyes brimming with anger.
“Now, the rules to my game. You take me out, then it’s all yours—pussy, my mouth, even my ass—no limits.”
He laughed. “You serious?”
“Like a heart attack.”
“You want to wrestle with me?”
“Like WWF, sweetheart,” she replied.
Jake smiled. He was ready to play; he was sure he could easily take her down. He figured that one punch from him would have her unconscious. And unconscious or not, he was still going to fuck her.
Tamar was ready to show off her skills and have some fun with him. It had been a while since she’d had any hand-to-hand combat. She needed the exercise. Besides, tonight, Jake needed to be taught a lesson. His brutal way with women was about to come to an end.
Before Jake could move, she moved swiftly and punched him with her closed left fist full across his face, rocking him.
He took a step back and then steadied himself, blinking his eyes and staring at her. He didn’t even see that simple move coming. Blood trickled from his lips. He licked it away quickly and said, “Oh, I’m gonna definitely have some fun with you.”
He threw a punch, and she dodged it, and then she retaliated with a swift kick into his side, her shin crashing against his ribs.
Jake tumbled backwards from the whack, and she punched him again, this time with her right fist to his jaw, causing him to stagger forward. He remained on his feet, blinking heavily.
“You still wanna play?”
“You’re mine, bitch!” he hollered.
He stood erect again, his face flaring up like a firecracker, while Tamar stood ten feet from him, still looking unperturbed.
Jake charged like a bull, ready to impale his fists through Tamar, but she rolled her hands down and away with a minor Wing Chun deflection, and snapped his head back hard, popping his jaw like a rat trap.
He flicked again, and this time, Tamar hit him in the Adam’s apple. He clutched his throat, his face turning bright red.
“You still wanna play?”
It took him a moment to regain his composure and rise to his feet. Like a brute, he shook off the pain. He cha
rged again like a fool.
This time she lifted herself vertically, with him rushing forward, and smashed an elbow into the side of his skull, the soft spot high on the temple. It sent him crashing face-first into the floor, this time leaving him completely dazed.
Tamar went over to him while he rolled over onto his back and slapped her right palm down on his face, shattering his nose. Blood spewed everywhere.
He hollered.
She looked delighted. “Are you having fun yet?”
He hunched over, on his knees, his blood leaking onto the frayed carpet. He was clearly no match for Tamar. But he wasn’t about to give up, not yet.
“You’re dead, bitch!” he hollered, his mouth and nose coated with blood. He suddenly had a knife. “I’m gonna cut you up really good, you bitch.”
Tamar moved away from him. She now had to be extra careful. But she wasn’t afraid.
As he started toward her, she took another step back and slid her belt out of her pant loops. She looped it around her left hand so that the buckle end swung loose.
Jake pounced toward her wildly, swinging and throwing the knife madly her way, and she moved away from the sharp blade with precision.
Finally, she went from playing defense to offense, hitting him with the belt buckle in the back of his head. Then when he tripped up, she hit him with a left hand in the V under his ribs, where the sternum ends, paralyzing his diaphragm.
He doubled over, gasping, and then pitched forward onto the floor. He couldn’t move. His blood continued to drip as he exhaled and inhaled. He inched his arms under himself and pushed himself up on his hands and knees with his head hanging like a winded horse.
Smirking at the defeated brute, Tamar stood over her handiwork. “I guess you don’t want this pussy bad enough, huh?”
Jake couldn’t speak. He was done for.
“You thought I was like them—fuckin’ weak. You thought you were about to take this pussy like you did the others, huh?”
He didn’t answer. He could barely move.
“How many women have you taken advantage of? Raped and abused? Took something from them because you thought you could, using your size and strength to dominate them?”
He didn’t answer.
“This was fun, though. I haven’t had this much fun in a while.”
“Please,” he finally managed to utter.
“Please? You want mercy from me?”
As Jake stared up at her, suddenly looking defeated and pitiful, Tamar raised her heeled shoe and slammed it into his jaw. The only sound beyond the crack of his skull on the ground was the soft exhalation that escaped his lips.
He whimpered like a bitch.
Tamar wasn’t done with him yet. She didn’t come to Boston to leave empty-handed. Since she couldn’t get Melissa Chin, he would do. She had a bag of goodies in her car, and they were about to be put to good use tonight. She was about to make tonight the worst night of his life, a night he would never forget. And she planned on leaving with a parting gift afterwards—his testicles.
Fifteen
It was another long bus ride for Cristal into North Carolina on the Greyhound. It would be another three hours before the bus reached the city of Charlotte. Cristal had some things on her mind, and she simply wanted to get away for a while. She sat in the rear of the bus, in a window seat. Next to her sat an elderly Hispanic male in his late seventies. Like her, he mostly slept during the trip, and chatter between them was thin.
The sun was gradually breaking open the sky, the dawn’s light burning the darkness away. She gazed out the bus window and watched as the large glowing sphere rose slowly into the dull morning sky. The sun dispersed its beams in every direction, illuminating the small town they were passing through.
She thought about The Bishop and his words. She left his place feeling like a better and more resourceful woman. She’d spent two days with him then left with some peace of mind, if she could call it that. The Bishop had survived this long and was living a content life, so she wanted to follow his every footstep.
She took in everything he’d said to her. His words were rooted into her mind. Find your niche in life, outside of killing. Assassins could never retire; they just become more-difficult-to-kill targets. Maintain a balance of work and life.
Cristal felt she had found that balance in her life in Charlotte, North Carolina. His name was Daniel Roberts. They’d been dating for six months now. He was a medical student at Johnson C. Smith University, in his fourth year and on a partial scholarship. So with a few student loans that needed to be paid off, he had to work two jobs and attend school full-time.
Daniel was from New Orleans, and had survived Katrina and poverty before that. He was a nerd, and Cristal fell in love with him, though not right away.
...
They met while she was doing a hit in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Benson Okeke contract. Benson was a foreign diplomat from Western Africa—a warlord and brutal savage who’d murdered millions of his own people in civil warfare.
She’d executed that contract, assassinating him in a crowded restaurant while he was seated in the VIP area with his armed goons. She narrowly escaped them, ditching her disguise and immediately changing her look as they were dead on her heels.
She ran into the busy street and into a nearby bar. Knowing the bodyguards were looking for a single black woman, she purposely took a seat next to Daniel on the barstool as he was watching a sports event on the mounted TV. She quickly started a conversation with him, making it look like they’d known each other for a while and were two people having a drink, enjoying each other’s company.
He was caught off guard, but went with the flow.
It worked, and she eluded the bodyguards.
She lingered at the bar for a moment, conversing with Daniel, and surprisingly, they were having an intellectual conversation. Though they came from different worlds, they found themselves talking about sports, food, and movies.
Then it was Cristal who was surprisingly caught off guard. He actually was making her laugh and smile.
Daniel was in Raleigh for a book signing. Harriet A. Washington, the author of the book Medical Apartheid, was in town. As a medical student and a devotee of black history and medicine, he thought the book about the Tuskegee syphilis experiment was a must-read. He couldn’t miss the opportunity to meet the Black American writer, winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction.
Cristal was intrigued by his knowledge, his humor, and warm attitude toward a stranger he had just met. And he didn’t seem to mind the minor scars on her face. Daniel gazed at her like she was the queen of Egypt, and he wasn’t shy in telling her so.
Cristal remained vague about her life, while knowing everything about him. She wouldn’t give him her heart so easily. Despite his easygoing and jovial way of thinking, it was still hard for her to trust anyone. When he tried to make plans for the future, she was always hesitant to commit, knowing his world and hers could clash. So he learned to live spontaneously with her.
Cristal was unable to love after Tamar took everything from her. Her best friend had betrayed her, leading to months of isolation and fear. She didn’t believe in tomorrow, but The Bishop and especially Daniel allowed her to open her heart again, making her think that maybe she could have a tomorrow.
...
The sky had been a postcard-perfect day. The bus was an hour from Charlotte, and like her mood, the weather above began to change. She peered out the window. The sky was now tar-black, and the large clouds were moving over the vast region. She sighed. She didn’t have an umbrella on her.
Half an hour away from the city, Cristal heard tapping on the window, and then it became a pitter-patter. It started to downpour. She stared at the bad weather as the Greyhound bus made its way closer to the bus station. She could hear the murmuring of the rain through the window. On the highway, the roofs of the cars danced with spray from the rainstorm.
As the bus rolled toward
the bus station on Tryon Street, she could see Daniel waiting for her by his car, an aged Honda Civic. He was a sweetheart, standing by his car in the rain under an umbrella.
Seeing him, her smile came naturally. He wore glasses and had a small, curly Afro. He was slim with a peanut-butter complexion, no facial hair at all, and handsome. She couldn’t help but to think of him as the black Bill Gates. He was very intelligent and wanted to become a brain surgeon.
As the bus pulled into the station, the rain began to let up. The sun came out again, casting slanted beams of light across the city.
Cristal never took her eyes off her man. With just one small duffel bag, she got off the bus and hurried toward him, smiling. He started her way, and she went into his open arms where he hugged her lovingly and didn’t hesitate to say, “I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” she said.
They hugged each other strongly, and then they kissed. She had been away from him for two months.
Looking into her face, he asked, “So, how was Africa, Beatrice?”
“It was an experience,” she replied. “I can’t wait to tell you all about it.”
“I can’t wait to hear about it,” he said, looking at her with enthusiasm. He hugged her again, reluctant to let her go.
Cristal was trained to conjure up false identities to make her fraudulent life believable to anyone. She had told him her name was Beatrice Thompson, Bee for short. He also thought she worked for the Peace Corps, which allowed her to travel to different countries around the world to aid others in need. It was a life-defining experience. She wanted to contribute to improving the lives of others. It was the perfect cover story. It allowed her to be gone for long periods of time and off grid without him able to keep in contact with her all the time.
When Daniel had asked about her minor scars when they’d first met, she said, “I got them while I was in Uganda, in a small town called Gulu. I was helping with the medical supplies for the children in an IDP camp, where there was an ebola outbreak.
“I was getting to know the Acholi people very well. We became a family. But the hostility between the UPDF and the LRA was growing. One night, there was an explosion, then heavy gunfire. I tried to hurry the children onto the buses for escape and was wounded from the gunfire.”
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