Hold Me in Contempt (13 page)

“But you be strong, girl,” my driver said, “and focus on who and whose you are, because your maker is stronger than your enemy. And that's what I tell him.”

The S7 sped off when the light finally changed, and behind three more taxis in a hurry was a silver Bentley that shined so brightly in the sunlight that it forced two last tears out of my eyes.

“I say to him, ‘You focus on God, boy. Because that's how you make it through,' ” the sermon went on over the steady hip-hop beats rattling from the Bentley. “You put your faith in the Lord and his son, Jesus Christ, and you can't go wrong. You know that? Salvation is through the King of Kings! Glory!”

Nodding, I watched the silver car and the sun bouncing off its every surface. We were stopped at a light again, and I peered into the darkened back windows to try to see inside. I wasn't looking for anything. Just maybe something. A rapper. A face I knew that I could tell someone else about later. Tamika and I always shared our celebrity sightings in the city.

I am sure I was almost leaning out my window when all of a sudden the back window of the Bentley came down a little and smoke rolled out in sweet marijuana-laced waves. There was someone laughing inside, a white face with a thin beard. I thought I knew the face but couldn't recall how and when I'd seen it. That's when the man started laughing and the tilt of the head took me back to the bar that night with Tamika. Back to Damaged Goods.

“King?” I recalled aloud. “King!” I felt a happy flutter in my stomach—as if I was seeing an old friend. Or had known him beyond our two-minute meeting in a dank bar in Brooklyn.

“That's right! The King of Kings!” the driver repeated my words when the light changed and we started moving again.

“No, King! King!” I pointed to the car like he had any idea who I was talking about. “Stop!”

King must've heard me, because he looked around outside the window.

I waved and said his name again, but his car was speeding up and mine, of course, was slowing down.

“The King?” the driver repeated again, tapping his brakes. “That's right! We stop for the Lord! Brake for the Lord!”

“Never mind. He's gone.” I watched as the shiny silver car rolled away.

I stopped at the store in the lobby of my building. Watched as the clerk slid a cold bottle of Jameson into a paper bag. He'd asked why I was home from work so early. Mentioned that he didn't think he'd ever seen me during the day before. I smiled politely and tucked the bottle into my work bag before heading toward the elevator. Besides the doorman, no one was around. And it was so quiet, I could hear the elevators sliding up and down the cords between floors.

As I waited I tried to free my mind of Paul in my office. Take a week off? Two weeks? What was he saying about me? I had no way of knowing anything was going to happen to Bernard Richard. If Paul had seen him sitting in the conference room staring off like a meth zombie, he would've made the same decision. This wasn't about me or my work. I wasn't burnt out. I was moving on with my life and not falling for his lies anymore, and he couldn't handle that. God, what men will do when they feel threatened. But to bring it to my job? To humiliate me in front of simple-ass Easter Summer and Chief Elliot, who probably wanted to see me go down because I'm a woman? I couldn't let Paul get away with that. He was right that I wouldn't escalate the situation and accuse him of sexual harassment. I actually had just as much to lose in that kind of battle as he did. Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas proved to all working women that there was no predetermined victor when women stepped up with information about sexual advances, no matter how crass or vile, against men in power. In spite of his nasty-ass Coke-bottle pubic-hair comments, Thomas went on to the Supreme Court, and Hill and her tired, worried face were hardly seen beyond a short list of random television interviews and late-night news panels. I'm sure that wasn't the life she'd imagined as a rising star when she took the job beneath Thomas at the Department of Education.

And as much as I hated to agree with anything Paul said, he wasn't lying about my part in our affair. I'm a grown woman, and I know there were two people in our tango, and as many accusations as I could chuck at him, he could lob double in my direction. Still, however we handled whatever happened between us needed to happen where it started. I wasn't about to put my career on the line for that.

Like the lobby, my apartment was quiet with noontime nothingness. In the kitchen, I opened the Jameson and took three shots to calm myself before pouring a glass with three ice cubes. I took the glass and bottle to the couch, where I looked at the blank television screen and thought to turn it on but decided against it. Instead, I looked at my reflection, alone and frozen like a Zoloft commercial for single women who'd failed at everything. I remembered King calling me a queen. Me not answering and walking out of the bar like I didn't know he was talking to me. Maybe I knew he was joking or thought he couldn't be right. Some queen I would be. I couldn't hold anything in its place. All this spectacle in my life, and there I was with no power to do anything about it.

I poured another glass and lay back on the pillow I sometimes used to ease the pain in my lower back. I needed a plan. I could get everything back in place if I could just focus. I thought about King and how he moved with so much confidence around Damaged Goods. The woman behind the bar laughing at his jokes. His eyes direct but relaxed in a place where most men who looked like him would be either unwelcome or placed under constant speculation that could end in a horrible fight to prove his masculinity.

I finished my drink, but the ice cubes were still there, so I poured a little more Jameson and lay back again.

Men and their masculinity. Dr. Davis and Paul acting like I was the reason for their problems. Like I had the issue. I'd fought to get where I was. Every single step of the way I'd fought. Through college. Law school. I'd handled those cases all by myself, and now I was out of line? Me? I needed a break? To go sit in the fucking corner with a dunce cap on? Fuck them!

I drained the glass and slid it onto the coffee table. I didn't need a break. I needed everyone off my back, so I could move on. I placed the pillow in the small of my back. My eyes closed and everything went spinning into a disorienting tornado of images that led to someplace in my memory, in my past.

It was Ronald's apartment.

Kim 2 was sitting on the side of the bed in one of those thin bras from American Apparel that only girls with A-cups could wear. I was still in my green sundress
,
standing at the door with my hands behind my back, looking at her. The creamy little breasts that led to ruddy nipples, brown and red at the same time.

Ronald had insisted we leave the lights on. In a group text message between the three of us, he'd said he wanted to remember this. To see everything and record it in his memory in case it never happened again. Kim 2 responded with a smiley face and “SURE” in all caps.

Bassnectar was playing on the radio beside the bed. The music Ronald usually worked out to. He was in the bathroom off the other side of the room, and I could hear him taking deep breaths, like he was doing pull-ups on the bar he'd installed in the doorway.

Kim 2 stood and ambled to me. Through her thin panties peeked a freshly shaved vagina. I felt myself back up a little, like she was a nude stranger, because that was how it felt.

“
Calm down
,”
she said
,
taking my hand and slipping something into my palm. “Take that. Lie down and just relax. I'll handle this.”

“
What is it?” I looked into my palm and found a round yellow pill with a happy face etched into it.

“
A little Ex for your nerves. You'll need it.” She laughed. Took the pill from my hand and held it up to my mouth until I opened wide and made a bed of my tongue. “It won't take long.” Her words slurred into a cadence that matched the music. “Just relax.”

She pulled me to the bed and told me to lie down.

“
It's nothing. Just remember you're doing it for him. Right?” she whispered into my ear
,
looking at the bathroom door. I nodded. “It'll be great. Legendary.”

My head was pulled back onto the pillow by something strong and fluid inside of me. There was a rush from my toes to my brain and then needles dancing from my palms up my arms.

Kim 2's laughing turned into the music, and where she was positioned at the foot of the bed
,
I couldn't tell if she was dancing or standing. There were just her red nipples and nude
,
pubescent vagina first under and then outside of her bra and panties.

“
You're naked,” I said
,
trying to lift my hands to point at her
,
but I couldn't move.

“
You are
,
too!” She cackled like a witch into the music and pointed at me.

I looked down at my breasts parted on my chest
,
so cold I was covered in goosebumps. “I'm cold
,”
I said, wondering where my green dress had gone, and hearing in my voice a slurring whine that made me sound more like Kim 2 than Kim 1.

“
Bitch
,
you're fucked up already
,”
Kim 2 said. “You'll be fine. It'll pass in a few minutes. Then you'll be ready to play.”

She started dancing, and I tried to focus on her body
,
to keep pace with something so I didn't pass out from the pressure in my head. My eyelids were so fucking heavy, and my brain was dragging my mind into the pillow with it.

Ronald walked out of the bathroom naked with his dick fully erect and tapping at the nappy black hairs over his protruding belly button.

“
What? Hold up!” I tried to get up to tell him he was naked and I wasn't ready for that, but I hardly made it to my elbows before I fell back again.

“
Oh
,
you're already ready for us?” Kim 2 said
,
sauntering over to my first lover with a grin. “And here I was thinking about how we were going to get your dick.” She laughed.

Ronald looked at me and sort of smirked before Kim 2 was in his face and turning his chin to her with her index finger.

With his attention
,
she got up on her tippy-toes and started sucking on his neck and stroking his dick.

“
You're so hard
,”
she purred between nips at his neck
,
running her fist up and down the shaft of his dick with a visibly tight grasp, making him moan.

The weights at the back of my head were dissipating, and I managed to sit up.

“
You okay
,
baby?” Ronald walked over to the side of the bed and stood just close enough to reach over and touch my hair.

“
She's feeling it now. Aren't you
,
Kiki?” Kim 2 walked over to me too and pushed the finger she'd been holding over the tip of Ronald's dick into my mouth. “Suck it
,”
she demanded naughtily.

I looked at Ronald and he nodded.

And then my lips were squeezing her finger as she teased it in and out of my mouth and the salty taste of Ronald's pre-cum mixed with my saliva.

Ronald bent down to kiss me, but Kim 2 pulled her finger from my mouth and slipped it into his. Then she came back to me and started dipping it in and out of each of our mouths
,
teasing us toward each other until finally our tongues met and we were kissing intensely and deeply. I started sucking Ronald's tongue
,
feeling like all I wanted was something in my mouth to ease the vibrations coursing through my body from the tip of my clitoris to my tonsils.

Kim 2 had climbed on top of me and was straddling my waist with her knees
,
popping her pussy to Bassnectar's “Wildstyle Method.”

“
Suck his dick
,”
she said rather wistfully as she swayed her hands off-beat in the air like a drunken belly dancer. “I want to see it.”

Ronald stopped kissing me and stood erect with his hard dick. I stared and tried to remember what I was doing. Why I was there.

“
Do it
,”
Kim 2 instructed then. “I know you're not scared. Don't act like you haven't sucked that dick before. I always hear Ronald moaning through the wall at our place. Let me see. Come on.”

Ronald wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and pulled my face toward his head. I looked up into his eyes, and he smiled
,
leaning back on one foot. It was his birthday. This was his birthday wish. I remembered. A threesome with my roommate. The last thing he wanted to do to sow his wild oats before getting engaged. Just the thought of that opened my mouth wide, and I took all of that dick into my cheeks until the back of my tonsils burned and I felt like I might cough up the strawberries and red wine I'd had earlier.

“
Fuck yeah
,”
Kim 2 coached like an accomplished porn star as I rolled my lips back and forth and up and down his venous shaft as it pounded into me so many times that tears trickled into the creases of my eyes. Ronald had been the only man I'd ever had sex with
,
the only penis ever in my mouth, but I'd practiced this art to completion too many times to fail—and I certainly was not about to fail in front of Kim 2 and her ruddy nipples and buff pussy.