Today made up almost a week where I didn’t manage my six squares of sidewalk, a sidewalk where memories of Sybil and me were the filthy runoff that ended up in the gutter after a rainstorm. What the hell was I thinking; I knew my six squares were already claimed by some other ho who thought she found gold at the end of her fucked up rainbow. How was I ever going to go back? I was done living in a broken world, filled with crumbling sidewalks and wrecked dreams.
I sat in our apartment covered in a fog knowing there were decisions I ultimately had to make. I looked around at all of Sybil’s things and the other stuff that happened to belong to me. There was no way I could even consider going back to my squares. I had to be stronger than I’d ever been before. I had to get my shit together and pack up Sybil’s stuff. I couldn’t let anything of hers get lost or left behind. She wouldn’t want that to happen, especially if her family decided to come and collect what was left of her.
We’d never talked about shit like this. Maybe it was being optimistic that we would survive beyond our profession. I was so wrong. I didn’t know where to start. My hands tingled at the thought of touching her belongings. I stood in our apartment and looked around overwhelmed at where to begin. Should I start with her clothes, or look under her bed for things she kept hidden away? I had to remind myself, she was gone and there wasn’t anyone else who was going to clean up what was left of her.
I stood staring at her closet door. It was the only closet in the apartment. The day we moved in to our apartment poured through my mind.
“Wow, Sybil, get your ass over here and check out this closet. It’s like bigger than the whole place!” I bellow, wiping the sweat from my brow. We just finished unloading the last box from the back of my car.
“There’s enough room for both of us to hang up our shit,” she squawks.
“Hell, no, sistah, we’re gonna roshambo for it! It’s a luxury one of us should take full advantage of,” I quip as I square toward her and throw up my fist resting on the palm of my other hand. I know how to rock, paper, scissor my way into any situation, I’m quite good at it . . . until today.
“Fine, one, two, three.” She counts before slamming her fist down in unison with mine. She drops the infamous rock and well, when my two fingers protrude from my fist, my fate is sealed and the first game of three is lost. Sybil wins two out of three roshambos, and in less than two minutes claims her closet. To the victor goes the spoil, well, all except for a little section in the front right side, a spot she reserves for me, just in case I have something that doesn’t fit in my rickety freestanding armoire. Me being the stubborn shit I am, I never give into her requests and eventually she absorbs that space with more clothes she’s never gonna wear. But today is the last time I’ll ever play roshambo, with anyone. I learn my lesson; she is the best at anticipating people’s choices.
I let the awkwardness roll across my skin as I pulled open the closet next to her bed and stared at all of her things. Dresses and tops she’d let me borrow a hundred times before, methodically hung from the clothing rods. I thought about the moments where I’d been in this closet before, where she had let me rifle through her clothes because she insisted I wear something of hers. Now, I was in her closet rifling because she didn’t have a voice. Sybil would never have the option to tell me it was okay, ever again.
There wasn’t a square inch of her closet she didn’t use. Stacked boxes of high heels on the shelf above her dual clothes rods, and shoe organizer hung on the inside of the door. It was organized by outfits, and their matching shoes. She had so many dresses which reminded me of events that marked our lives beyond what we had in common. I pushed her clothes apart, noticing the little black leather dress she wore when she had an overnighter at the Sir Francis Drake. She was so excited to find red alligator skin pumps which looked like they were made for that dress. She looked beautiful with her deep red bristled hair and shoes to match.
I collected a heavy handful of her clothes from the closet and laid them across her bed. A ritual which tore my heart apart with each step I took back and forth between her closet and her bed. Tears poured down my cheeks as each stack I created became the story of her life where someone either threw her away or paid for who they wanted her to be. I added the last cluster of designer coats and sweaters, balancing on the disorganized stack of shirts on the bed when a hollowed clank of something that tumbled to the hardwood floor and rolled under my bed. Normally, I wouldn’t care but today life was different, my life was slow and heavy and moved at a pace where everything seemed thick and raw, magnified by who was missing in our apartment’s silence.
I crumpled to the floor, and landed rough against the shaggy black area rug between our beds. My knees rippled with pain. My face burned hot while cool tears clustered at the edges of my eyes, and I ached to go numb. I just wanted to disappear, get lost in my pain. I wanted to have one more moment where I had the chance to say goodbye, to tell Sybil that in my own twisted way, I loved her like a sister, she was the only person who made me feel worthy of having a family to love me.
My eyes heavy with loss, they floated closed for a moment longer than I anticipated. When I opened my tear clouded eyes, I saw the collection of white and brown boxes covered in a thin layer of undisturbed dust under my bed. Each package was a proposition from Mr. C, they were reminders I kept hidden of how much he still resided just below my skin, even a year later. He knew the power he had over me and seeing those boxes conjured an ache that thundered across my soul. He was my breaking point, the one I was convinced I could quit, just after this one last time.
I stretched my hand out to the closest box and pulled it toward me. In its wake the box scraped out an unmistakable clear path along the dusty hardwood floor, more evidence that I was disturbing the demons I struggled to keep dormant. It represented the agonizing moment when I would be at my lowest and seek out those who were the most damaging to my soul. I tossed the first box on the bed and collected another, then another. I didn’t stop pulling the packages out until they filled my entire bed. I welcomed Mr. C’s bribes like a lost friend, hoping by piling them up I would see the evidence of what I meant to him. I dropped my head one last time to the shabby hardwood floor and saw a silver cylinder tucked under the edge of a manila bubble mailer. The clank against the hardwood floor and the lopsided roll that led me to the buried past under my bed replayed in my head. Realization clung to me like an old friend . . . it was Sybil’s lipstick. I reached out and grabbed it and collected the last package from Mr. C.
I turned over and sat back against my bed. Chills rippled across my skin as memories shuffled through my head. Memories of Sybil as she dragged her dark-red lipstick across her mouth before she rolled and puckered her lips. How she would constantly go around and kiss all the mirrors in the apartment.
“Sybil, why the fuck do you keep doing that?”
“It’s the best way to keep track of my new favorite colors.”
“No, all it does is create more work for me. I try and look in the mirror and all I see is your freaking kisses are all over it.”
“Nobody asked you to clean my lips off the mirrors. Maybe you should look at yourself so my kiss is on your cheek and lighten up a little.”
I craned my neck, I looked over at the mirror behind the front door, and my heart tumbled into my stomach. Just a couple of days ago I had cleaned all the mirrors in the apartment. Sybil’s colorful kisses wiped clear from the reflection, without a thought of never seeing them again. Something she did which was so irritating, and now a reminder of how desperately I ached to have them back.
All right Rose, it’s time to shut this shit down. Yep, time to pull your ass out of this fucked-up moment and callous your heart. The familiar judgmental voice I’ve listened to all of my life echoed through my head.
Look at yourself, curled up on the floor! Nobody is coming to save your shit, Rose. There isn’t anybody who’s willing to shoulder Sybil’s life. Her family isn’t going to fucking come pick up her shit.
You know it, deep down; you have to admit that nobody ever cares about the broken girls buried in shady back alleys or abandoned buildings.
I was good at shutting down, better than most my age. I’d lived my entire life filled with the sheer agony of wounds rubbed raw by the people who were supposed to love me. You couldn’t offer your body to perfect strangers and not expect to have scars. Take it from me; it was for the best when you couldn’t find a place to bury your feelings. It was the only way you stay somewhat sane when your heart was trampled and you were numb.
I reached over and picked up the dusty bubble mailer from the floor next to me. It was the first package Garrett, Mr. C mailed me after I told him I wasn’t going to see him anymore. It was the nastiest kind of torture when you fell for a date and pinned your future on him hoping he’d save you from all the dirty fucks who never gave a rat’s ass beyond just getting off.
I got up, stood there and stared at all the bribes Mr. C sent me before I pulled open the edge of the package, tilted the bubble mailer and watched the contents tumble out.
A soft black cashmere scarf fell into my hands. I caressed my thumb against it before I dragged it across my face. A deep hollow ache returned to my gut, a crave I had had for someone to fill the deserted hole left in my heart. But, I knew this scarf, every feeling it evoked through my body, every sharp stabbing fear it seared into my soul, all the memories of our three days together knotted into one night where Mr. C had broken me and shredded my heart. Truthfully, a year ago it was the scarf which had become my only comfort. Today, it pulled me back into a memory that was seductively frightening.
It was all so stupid because broken girls aren’t given hooks to hang their dreams upon. I wasn’t given the key to the castle; I was buried below the dim streetlights and darkened skies. I will never be the princess or the queen; I will always be the call girl, a romp in the hay, the whore for hire. At least with Mr. C I was with someone who gave my pain a purpose. I held the scarf to my nose, and inhaled, hoping I’d capture Mr. C’s essence. Disappointed, I dropped the scarf to the floor and it became lost against the black shaggy area rug. I was alone in my apartment, nothing but thoughts and memories thundering through my head.
PAST
THE MOONLIGHT SHINES bright, my eyelids are too thin to protect me from the glow. Mr. C’s fingers crawl down around the front of my stomach, slipping between the silky soft sheets and my body, he snakes his fingers down between my legs. I stretch, lifting my hips slightly from the bed, and act as if he woke me up.
His chest grows heavier against my thighs. He’s demanding and strong when his fingers finally find me. I’m caught, taken from the moment he drags the tip of his tongue along the seam of my ass, I try and spread my legs, but they’re locked under him.
“That’s right, my little Rosebud, you like that?” he growls before he bites the edge of my ass.
I buck and clench against his long talented fingers as he buries them deeper in my dampness. I relish in the excitement his fingers create deep where they troll.
“Mmm, you’re gonna make me come,” I hum.
He freezes, the friction his fingers create stops and so do their magical assault, his lips leave a cold trace across my skin. Unexpectedly, he climbs on top of me; I lose my breath as his stone-hard cock slides up between my legs. It pressures against the crevice of my ass, I tense.
“What did you say to me?” he quips against the side of my face. My skin pricks with his tone. I pulse low with an ache for him to fuck me from behind.
“Ummm . . . something ‘bout coming,” I answer in broken breathless huffs.
“Ahhhh, Rose, you’re such a beautiful woman, why must you speak that way?” His voice is deep, low, dark and pain-filled. Shifting slightly, the weight of his body rests against the curve of my ass.
“What way?” I ask.
“Untrained, it’s our third night together. Don’t you remember what would happen if you continued to use those lazy words around me?”
“I don’t think you ever said.” I settle under him, just enough to make eye contact with him.
“You become poisonous to me.” He adjusts his weight to one hand and with the other swipes the strands of hair from my face.
“Poisonous? What the hell does that mean?” I try and to buck him off my back. Playing into his fantasy is one thing, but calling me poisonous, is something else entirely altogether. I’ve lived my whole life believing that I am poisonous to people.
He uses his body weight to pin me down. I’m stuck under him, his prisoner.
“It upsets me when you don’t speak properly. Someone so beautiful should have a vocabulary to match.”
He gets up off of me and lets me go. Free.
“Well, maybe I ain’t what you think. This is me, if you don’t like whatcha got, maybe you should have picked up someone else.”
His eyes constrict while he shakes his head, it’s as if he is wickedly disappointed . . . yet again.
“If I wanted someone else, believe me I would have them. I chose you, I want to take care of you. Teach you how beautiful you are,” he answers. The tone in his voice is breathy, yet constricted and strong.
His eyes are sexy, dark, thought provoking. His jaw tenses as he stands at the edge of the bed and rolls his hand in the sheet. My eyes swallow every inch I can see, from the top of his head down to the lingering moment I stare at his cock.
“You trust me?” he asks.
His eyes pin me.
“Well, do you?” he commands.
I nod.
I’m caught in Mr. C’s enchantment; his eyes penetrate every fear I’ve ever had. For three days, he’s captured me in a whirlwind of incredible and unforgettable. Although, it makes me uncomfortable at times, he’s gotten under my skin and infected every cell of my body and I let him.
He pulls a slight smirk across his face before he swipes his tongue across his bottom lip, his eyes constrict.
“I need to hear you say you trust me.”
He saunters to the foot of the bed, and slides his hands across my calf, tangling the top sheet tight around my ankle.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I trust you.”
A wicked smile creeps deliberately across his face and his eyes fiercely consume every inch of my naked body. He pulls the sheet, dragging my leg to the edge of the bed, making sure it’s loose enough to be comfortable but tight enough to be invitingly sexy.
“If you become uncomfortable, you need to tell me.” He pulls on the sheet as he cracks a shit-eating grin.
“Tight enough?” he asks before he drags his tongue along the inside of my calf, and his hands traipse their way up my thigh. His breath steams against my flesh and I crave him like a full fledged addict.
“Yes.” My voice catches as he flutters his fingers between my legs spread wide for him.
He takes my other ankle and wraps it in the opposite side of the sheet.
I gasp.
He smiles.
His hands caress up my legs, every muscle in my body constricts, tightens, and clings to the idea that he’ll lick me into convulsions. I lay in wait, praying for the chill between my legs to be healed by his damp, hot, thick tongue. I hunger for his long fingers to drop me into mind-blowing-sparks-igniting-brain-breaking oblivion.
Instead, he leaves me tied at my ankles and saunters across the room.
“I have something for you. Something I think you might find . . . helpful.”
He lowers his hand into the top drawer of a black lacquered desk. Time stands still as visions crash through my head. Handcuffs, and wrist restraints were things I keep off limits with all my other dates.
“What?” I ask. A mix of fear and curiosity thunder through my chest.
What would you do if he had handcuffs? Rose, just this time, maybe you can let yourself trust. The fucked up voice in my head pops off.
Mr. C knew this isn’t part of the deal. I don’t do wrist restraints. I’m
about to call this whole fuckfest off when he pulls out a long, wide black cashmere scarf.
I let out my breath.
He notices.
“What’s that for?”
“I could ask the same thing,” I quip, pointing at the scarf he has in his hands.
He smirks. “You’ll see . . . or maybe you won’t.”
Relief consumes me, he notices.
Lowering the fringe of the scarf at my thighs he tickles me before he drags it slowly across the aching cusp between my legs. Vibrating, he trails it up and over the edge my stomach, swirling it around my hardened nipples.
“Hmmm,” I moan loudly, pleasure bumps explode across my skin.
I need him to take me, dive deeper than anyone who had come before him, and tame the beast that keeps tormenting me every day of my life. I hope he’ll be the one to heal all the scars that others left on my soul.
He lifts the scarf from my flesh; its vacancy causes me to quiver. Pulling the ends of the scarf tight, he bridges it between our faces.
A moment lingers.
His expression hidden behind the black scarf before he drops it over my eyes, the delicate cashmere covers my forehead and lies across my nose, tickling at the edge of my upper lip.
“Lift your head.”
I do what he asks. Wrapping the scarf around my head he’s got me tangled in a cluster of need. I blink and the little light I cling to disappears.
I’m in the dark. I see nothing.
My hearing is muffled.
He pulls the scarf back from my lips and leans down against my body. His heat steals the chill of the room. My heart’s thrashing in my chest, pulsing in time with my desire.
Broken Girl Page 16
