I grabbed her arm to stop her from walking away. “Where you going?”
“Back to Mrs. D’s house. We ain’t fucking, so I’m leaving.”
“I said I wasn’t fucking you. I’ll watch you fuck yourself, though.”
Her eyes lit up. She thought she’d won, but the suggestion was my compromise, a way to get her to stay. Raven didn’t realize it, but I knew her better than she knew herself. I knew that every time we were together, and we didn’t fuck, I burrowed deeper inside of her than my dick could ever get. She hid behind the act of sex. Fucking was easier for her than having a deep conversation or even lying in bed beside me. She could be intimate without intimacy. She held on to her pain by pretending that when she spread her legs for me, she was giving me all of her.
Sometimes I thought she loved wallowing in her misery. It was easier than making an effort to be happy.
That was why she kept me at arm’s length. I made her happy, sometimes. Other times she was terrified of me. She knew I was in search of her center; the place hidden behind all the walls she’d built. I wanted to know her deepest darkest secrets. I wanted her to let me have access to the broken parts of her so I could glue them back together piece by piece if I had to. To put it simply, I wanted to snatch her fucking soul. I was getting closer. I had a feeling her visit home was our turning point. Lennox would be her undoing.
“Strip,” I demanded of her.
Always down for whatever when getting a nut was involved, Raven pulled her dress over her head. She had neither a bra nor panties on. After untying her locs from the top of her head where she had them pinned in a bun, she fixed them, so they draped over her double-D breasts the way I liked. Then she laid back on the sofa and spread her thick thighs giving me a bird’s eye view of her pretty pussy. I licked my lips. I could almost taste her on there.
She smiled wickedly. “Now what?”
“Now show me how you want me to do you.”
Once she began to finger fuck her pussy. Her eyes never left mine. Grabbing her left nipple, she squeezed and tugged at it, cooed my name. Then repeated the same action on her left breast. Raven had always liked a little pain with her pleasure. She was so fucking sexy, and her pussy was so sopping. I saw her juices sliding between the globes of her ass. I wanted to fuck her so bad my dick throbbed painfully. I had planned on just watching, but there was no way I couldn’t join her.
Slipping my hand into my shorts, I pulled my dick out, put it in a stranglehold, stroked it a few times then stopped. I was on the verge of cumming before she was close to finishing.
“Make that pussy cum, Raven.”
She was hardheaded. Instead of fucking herself to orgasm like I told her, she slipped her finger from inside herself. A wicked smile spread across her lips.
“You wanna taste?” she asked, then she proceeded to lick her cum from her fingers. Tempting me.
I chuckled though wasn’t a damn thing funny. “Why play games now-- that you know I’m gonna make you pay for later.”
“Oh yeah. How you gonna make me pay?”
“You’ll see. Just remember to keep this same energy when that day comes, and I got you spread wide.”
"I'm not scared, Erick." She laughed and slid her hand back between her thick thighs and circled her clit with precision. Not even a minute later, she came flooding her fingers. My dick was brick hard. She watched me stroke it for a beat before pushing up onto her knees and crawling across the sofa. She leaned in hovering over me and nipped my chin with her teeth causing me to groan.
“Let me ride it, EB. You know you want to.”
She was right. I wanted her to, but not after she fucked him.
I managed to shake my head. “No,”
She nodded and gave me her version of an apology. “Don’t be mad at me Erick, I have issues.”
Then she proceeded to press gentle kisses and nips from my neck down to my chest. She knew exactly what would get me off. I was cumming before she made it to my dick. Then she used her tongue to clean up the mess I’d made, before she returned to her spot on the opposite end of the sofa.
While I watched her, she watched me. Her eyes said everything she refused to outright say. I knew she wanted to be with me. I needed her to say it, though I knew she wouldn’t. Not while she was trying to figure out how to fit Lennox into her new life.
Finally, she looked away as I expected her to. She ended up staring at the spot above my head. I let her be.
It took me a minute to catch my breath but when I did, I got up. I pulled her up then led her to the shower. I washed her entire body for her. She returned the favor.
After the shower, while drying off, she went into one of her spiels. “I’m not staying all night.”
That was her MO. Anytime she was feeling something, she’d pull away. I was used to it, so it didn’t bother me. I was in it for the long haul and so was she. She wasn’t ready to admit it, though, so I walked away without even acknowledging her comment. I made my way to my bedroom naked and slid into bed.
Raven followed like I knew she would, then stood naked outside the master bedroom and scanned it from the door as if she was afraid to step over the threshold.
“It smells like you in here,” she said.
I laughed. “It’s my room.”
She kissed her teeth. “I think I should go.”
I rolled my eyes. “Raven.” I used the authoritative tone she loved for me to use when I was fucking her but hated for me to use when I wasn’t.
“What?” she snapped.
“Get into bed. It’s an order, not a suggestion”.
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she chewed her bottom lip. “But what if Mrs. D—”
“Get into bed, Raven,” I interrupted. “I want to hold you.”
Her eyes darted nervously around the room again before she finally agreed. Then, like a petulant toddler she heavy footed her way to bed.
I laughed and tugged at one of her loc, knowing it would calm her down a bit. “You’re so overly-fucking-dramatic at times.”
“But I don’t like sleeping with other people,” she said.
“Lies.”
I couldn’t ’count how many times we'd played this game. She slid under the covers. I pulled her to me. Her even breathing lulled me. I was damn near sleep when she spoke.
“Why are you so nice to me?” she asked.
“Because I love you.”
It was a simple truth I knew she would try to complicate, because Raven thrived on complicated.
She hummed, “I bet.”
“Look at me.”
“No,” she drawled
“Raven, look at me.” I waited until she faced me, then pressed my forehead to hers. “You need to stop waiting for me to switch up on you. I won’t. I love you even when you don’t love yourself. I might fall off for a minute when you hurt my feelings, I ain’t no savage, I got those, but I ain’t going nowhere.”
“If you love me so much, why aren’t you mad I fucked Lennox.”
It took every ounce of my willpower to keep my voice even when I answered her. I understood she was purposely trying to create conflict so she could run. I wasn’t going to participate in her fuckery.
“Am I mad you fucked him? Absolutely, but you’re going to do what you want to do regardless of what I say. I’ll be here to help when that blows up in your face though.”
“What that’s supposed to mean? Blow up in my face how?”
I heard the attitude creeping up in her voice. She had no reason to be mad, I did. Her pussy had been mine exclusively for so long, the thought of him touching her had me wanting to leave him stinking in a ditch somewhere. However, her fucking him was a necessary evil.
I shrugged. “You see what you want to see, when you want to see it, Raven. I predict this visit is going to be a real eye opener for you.”
Raven had always had a blind spot when it came to Lennox. Then after the fire she caught straight up amnesia where he was concer
ned. She started to talk about him like he was some type of fucking hero but would never go as far as telling me why. She’d just say, “I owe him my life.”
It was all so strange. I couldn’t understand what he had done to make her forget how abusive and possessive he’d been toward her. He treated her like shit more often than not when we were growing up. He would berate her for everything; how she talked, how she dressed, her weight. I heard him once telling her that she didn’t fit his image and that she would have to change when he made it pro.
I had never liked his ass, but after that, I hated him. I wanted to put my foot to his throat, but she’d begged me not to. Even back then nobody who knew her could understand why she seemed so attached to him. Lennox and Jasmine were a better match. Both were selfish, self-absorbed and materialistic.
Raven had issues stemming from the abuse she received at Robert’s hands, but she was one of the most caring and giving people I knew—once you got past all the walls she’d built. Her siblings loved her. Her nieces and nephews thought she was a deity and the women and girls she worked with thought she was a real-life hero. Even her stepmother who would have every right—under the circumstances to keep her at arm’s length—loved her. Everybody saw the good in Raven, except Raven.
“What—”
“Ma’am. Don’t get chatty on me now. My shift starts at five.”
“I’m a ma’am now? You’re trying to say I look old?”
I sighed. She was being petty, and she knew it. “Go to sleep, Raven. I’m not fighting with you.”
“Whatever.”
I chuckled. “Drop the attitude. I’m not going to lie to you because you feel some type of way about the truth.” I pulled her so she lay against my chest. “Go to sleep, Raven, and when I wake up you better be here.”
Not even five minutes later she was snoring lightly, and I couldn’t seem to quiet my thoughts, wondering what would happen next. .
Two days later-Raven
“Where have you been?”
When I walked into Mrs. D’s house after days of hiding out at Erick’s place. The last thing I expected to find was Lennox sitting in the dark.
“I stayed with a friend,” I said.
A gut-wrenching feeling warned me to turn and go back where I’d come from. Instead I closed the door. I felt like if Lennox an I had a real conversation,-- both of us could get closure. Then I would stop thinking about the what ifs. I could go home and move on with my life without thoughts of him constantly making me feel guilty or sad or angry.
Making my way into the living room I stood right outside his reach trying to formulate what exactly I wanted to say to him. He watched me, his leg bouncing angrily. He was shirtless only wearing a pair of basketball shorts and he didn’t look happy to see me.
“Who, Raven? What friend? You don’t have any fucking friends here anymore. You lost them when you left.”
Our eyes locked. The bitterness and rage in his turned them almost black
“Just a friend,” I muttered, scared to let Erick’s name slip from between my lips.
Lennox exploded. “Just say his fucking name, Raven!”
I didn’t even flinch though panic took me by the throat. His outburst reminded me of old times. Lennox had an explosive temper just like Robert’s. Before I could react, he had gotten up and we were chest to breast. His nostrils flared. The pace of my heart quickened.
“Say his fucking name, Raven. Say Erick. Tell me you broke yet another fucking promise you made to me.” His voice was so loud it made my ears ring.
I blanked out. Images, frayed memories of me locked in Lennox’s father shed, half naked, scared replaced all other thoughts. Lennox knew I hated the dark, was terrified of it. I’d been staying with him and his parents right after Robert died. He tricked me into meeting him late at night, outside.
Then he locked me in there for hours. It was well after midnight, so it was pitch-black. It was so dark I couldn’t even see my hands in front of me. For hours I sat, refusing to cry, but losing my damn mind. He returned just before the sun rose, but still didn’t let me out right away, not until I promised to stop speaking to Erick, forever. Of course, I’d made a promise with no intention of keeping it.
That was a week before I left home. That wasn't the first time Lennox had used something I’d told him to torment me. I wondered why my mind had twisted that memory. Before, when I thought being locked in the darkness that night, I’d attributed it to Robert, just one of the many sins he committed against me. Why had I forgotten it was Lennox?
Seething he repeated himself. He didn’t give me time to answer, even though I couldn’t answer him at all. I was frozen in place.
I heard his heavy footfalls as he walked away and, then again he made his way back to me. Before I could get my brain to react, I was being lifted like I weighed nothing. Lennox carried me into my temporary bedroom and entered the bathroom. He dropped me into the tub full of icy water. It was so cold I was sure he’d drawn it hours early, like he’d been waiting for me. He ripped my wet dress over my head. The past and the present mixed. It was like Robert was alive, in the room, helping Lennox torture and berate me.
“You fucking smell like him,” Lennox snapped bitterly.
You’re such a fucking whore, like your mother.
“You spread your fucking legs for him.”
I told you I’d kill that boy if I caught you with him again, you dirty bitch.
“You promised to stay away from Erick, you lying bitch.”
I closed my eyes and covered my ears. I fought myself mentally trying to escape memories that held me hostage. Lennox bathed me, rubbing my skin raw and I could do nothing.
It wasn’t until he dunked my head under water that the haze fell away. While I was under, I relived the day my mother died. I saw five-year-old me reaching for her. I felt my mother’s hand slipping from mine. I tried to save her. I’d fought as hard as I could until Robert scooped me up and carried me from the room. I remember standing outside of the locked bathroom door, the sound of her begging and gasping for air mixing with my sobs. When everything went silent. My heart had dropped to my feet. Even at five, I knew the silence wasn’t good.
The thought of dying like my mother spurred me. Rage like I had never felt before took over. I swung my arm out, connecting with Lennox’s face. My nails tore into flesh. Caught by surprise Lennox fell backward onto the floor giving me enough space to make my way out of the tub.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Raven?” he yelled.
Screaming incoherently, I ran. I couldn’t let him kill me. I wouldn’t die like my momma. I damn near broke my neck making my way out the bathroom. Frantically, I searched for a weapon. Lennox grabbed me from behind in a bear hold, just as I picked up a lamp from the side table.
“Let me go,” I kicked my feet out out and screamed. Let me go!” I was distraught but no tears fell as I struggled to remove myself from his grip.
“Calm down, Raven. Just breathe. Calm down. I won't let you go until you do.” He sounded calm. More like himself.
My heart rate plummeted, tired mentally and physically. I gave up fighting and slumped into him. He dropped to his knees, still holding me, then hugged me around the waist.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take it that far.” He begged me to forgive him while simultaneously blaming me for what he’d done. “You just make me so mad.” He didn’t sound sincere as he tried to talk me down.
I wanted to pull away. I wanted to hit him, to lash out. But I did nothing as he guided me to the bed. Lennox climbed in first then pulled me in with him. He situated me so we lay back to chest then he pulled the sheet over us and wrapped his arms around me. He was talking, trying to soothe me, but I couldn’t hear him. The words never let them see you bleed repeated over and over. My mantra, like always, mended of my broken pieces. They never repaired themselves, just rearranged, shaping into a weird version of whole. I’d be ok as long as I never let them see me bleed.
&
nbsp; The next morning, I woke up and it was still dark. Lennox was still sleeping. I slipped from under the covers, creeping to keep from waking him. I grabbed a dress from my bag and a change of clothes before grabbing my keys and my cell as I left.
Fed up?- Raven
“You’re smoking weed? So, you’re anxious, anxious, huh?”
I looked over my shoulder and found EB standing behind me out of uniform, wearing a T-shirt, gym shorts and Nike sandals, all white. He was so fucking handsome. I couldn’t understand how he had women drooling over him everywhere he went but was waiting on me to get my shit together. Sometimes the fear of knowing I might not ever --kept me up at night. I knew one day he would take off the rose-colored glasses and truly see me for who I was and figure out I wasn’t worth all the trouble and heartache I constantly put him through, then he’d be done with me for good. Then What? I couldn’t imagine life without him.
“Trying to calm my nerves.”
"By smoking?"
I wasn’t surprised by his surprise. It had been four years since I’d done any type of drugs. Not since the Molly incident where he had to come all the way to New York to search for me. The gag was--I had done it for attention. I had become irrationally angry when he told me Jasmine was pregnant, they weren't even supposed to be fucking. So, I resorted to my old ways to ease the pain; fucking, alcohol and drugs. It was stupid. But I had accomplished what I'd set out to do. He stayed with me for and entire month after he found me.
“Is it working?”
“No.”
I was stressed the fuck out. The incident from the previous night kept playing on a loop in my mind. All day long I was asking myself the same questions over and over. Why was stressing over Lennox? Why was I letting him disrespect me? He'd been giving me his ass to kiss for ten years and continued to do the same since I’d returned. When was enough, enough? I could feel myself unraveling trying to figure out the right thing to do. I felt I owed him, just not my sanity. The fact that I had started remembering how badly he treated me in the past wasn’t helping the situation.
Raven Page 4
