Sixty-Nine (17 page)

“I know.” He sat beside her and then placed his elbows to his knees, looking down at the floor.

She placed her hand on his shoulder. “I mean, not even so much that you asked me while we’re having sex, well, really, while
I was giving you, well, while we’re in bed. But since we just haven’t known each other very long, Miller. It’s so soon.”

“At my age, what is soon? I know what I want.”

His proposal still rumbled though her brain. “Oh my.”

He scooted back and turned to her. “Listen. I’m also old enough to know one thing, and that is if the answer was yes, you’d
have said it by now.” He stood, stepped to the other side of the bed and got under the covers.

Magnolia turned to him and slipped under as well, snuggling close, hugging him, and kissing the side of his face. She rested
her head on his chest and inhaled him. Bonding. “Can I answer later? Can I think about it?”

“You can. That’s fine. You need to be certain.”

She looked up at his face. “Thanks. And there’s nothing wrong with waiting, right? I mean, if we’re really for each other
then, that’s cool, right?”

“You want to get to know me better. I understand.”

“I just want time to think. To be sure. I’ve waited this long, I can wait a little longer. It’s just that I’ve never been
married before.”

“I know.” He closed his eyes.

Magnolia shifted her body to lie on her back. She looked straight up. “Funny, I just heard on the radio that if you’re over
forty, and you find someone who loves your old ass, you’d better be glad.”

“Uh-huh,” was all he said.

Magnolia turned back toward him and tickled him alongside his waist.

He jumped, opened his eyes, and grabbed her hand. “I know one thing. If you keep hollering like that, my neighbors are going
to think my name is Shit.”

She laughed. “You’re so silly. Whatever your name is, you’re the man.”

“I’m your man, angel.” He hugged her.

She gave a little girl giggle. “You’re
the
man who found my spot, you know?”

“Oh, okay, so I guess older men are good for something, huh?”

“Far from old, Miller. Far from old.” She said it twice because she really, really meant it. She placed her head along his
chest again and heard his heart, beating fast.

But so was hers.

He hugged her closer.

She snuggled in closer.

She closed her eyes and felt cherished. The word her grandmother told her about and tried to describe. But now she knew for
herself, that it felt good.

Cherished.

She basked in the feeling.

His protection was her escape.

I
t was a busy Wednesday night at Rebe’s place of, or what she called her
recreational
place of, employment, Make It Rain.

Rebe, no longer an amateur, in her olive thong and satin bra, gave an unfocused lap dance to a guy that her dancer friend
told her was an up-and-coming rapper. His face didn’t ring a bell, which Rebe swore looked like a cuss word, nor did his name
ring a bell, MC Trick the Slick. His slick words weren’t ringing Rebe’s turn-on bells either. He smelled like he’d just come
from playing a pickup game at the local rec center. And his breath told the world he’d been eating a large bag of Doritos
in the car before he came in the club. Cool Ranch.

Over the past month or so, ever since the night Trinity caught Rebe at Erotic City, Rebe’s patience for some of the patrons
had been wearing thin, and she’d even called in sick a few nights. But tonight, part of her needed to get out of the house
where the walls had been talking to her, get dressed, and distract herself just so she’d have something to do other than think.

Armani had been a no-show and no-call ever since that night. Not even a text. And he made a point to not come into the club
anymore. Rebe realized he’d made a choice between Trinity’s friendship and sexing Rebe up. And she understood.

Trinity had all but moved out, only coming home maybe twice a week. Each time she came in, she left with a few more of her
things. And Rebe felt if either of them said something to each other, somebody would end up dead. So, rather than trying to
explain things further, she left it alone.

She knew Trinity blamed her for everything, mainly for the freakfest at the swinger’s club with Big Booty Trudy, and rightfully
so, but also for being with a guy who Trinity knew, who was nearly half her mother’s age. And if Trinity were to tell it,
Rebe had to have been the reason Trinity’s father left when she was a toddler. Trinity blurted out that night that if Rebe
had helped him with his drug addiction, he wouldn’t have overdosed that night. And also, Trinity told her she believed Rebe
chased Randall into the arms of Kandi. Trinity seemed to hate her mother. But Rebe knew the feeling.

Rebe kept hearing her daughter say in her head,
If you’d only been…if you’d only been…if you’d only been…not so fucked up by your own mom.

So, for the moment, Rebe stayed in the environment she’d convinced herself she belonged in. Right there at the strip club
among all the other broken women, being the object of the affection of lustful men who based their hard-ons on the women’s
looks, not based on who they really were. To the men, all that mattered was the women’s bodies, not their minds. And to Rebe,
her body was in a lot better shape than her mind. She said in her head, focusing on her mind’s eye, not on whom she was shaking
her ass for,
Who I really am wouldn’t garner much long-term attention anyway
. So she stayed a forty-year-old stripper for another night, until she’d muster up enough self-esteem to quit, grinding to
“Pop, Lock and Drop It” by Huey.

The song said,
“Mami gon take it low if you can, then touch your toes.”
Rebe did not.

“You ain’t gonna give me no head?” the rapper asked, with chapped lips.

“No.” She wouldn’t look at his face.

“Why not?”

She was saved by the last note of the song. “Your dance is over.” Rebe ceased her half-grind moves. She put on her powder
blue boy shorts over her thong, and a sheer cover-up, finding herself trying to cover her body more, noticing herself gaining
weight.

He spoke under his Cool Ranch breath. “Freak ass bitch.”

This time she looked him straight on, squinting. “What’d you say?”

“Oh what’s up? You surprised I knew your name?”

She put her hand out. “That’s twenty.”

He put two hundred dollars in her hand. “Keep the rest so you can take some dance lessons.”

She said nothing, looking totally uninterested, like the only thing she had room in her mind for was an echo.

“You coulda had twice that if you’d have just put your head right here and sucked.” He pointed at his crotch.

Now what suddenly popped into her was shared. “I would’ve bit down on your little peter. Guaranteed.”

He flashed his gold teeth. “Just the way I like it.”

Rebe cut her eyes and walked away, making sure her boy shorts were straight. She walked around for a few moments, not really
working the floor, just passing by each small table without giving eye contact, without stopping, feeling like all she wanted
to do was take a shower. And then she went to the back room and sat on the stool in front of the makeup mirror. She sat as
long as she could and put her head down, praying the DJ didn’t call her name, or that one of the girls didn’t ask why she
wasn’t on the floor. And, she prayed that her life would turn around. Wishing she’d never made a sex promise. Wishing she’d
never started out the year vowing to go beyond the limits. “I asked for it. I got it.” Extra tired with a nagging headache,
she pulled her phone out of her tiny purse in the drawer and sent a text to Magnolia.

Can I go to church with you this Sunday? Please.
And then she put her phone back, and went back to work.

By three in the morning, after spending the rest of the evening acting like she was blind to the patrons, Rebe managed to
finish her shift and head home. Her phone read,
Sure. Absolutely. Love you. Magnolia.

Exhausted, both body and mind, Rebe stepped into the kitchen after pulling into an empty garage. She went inside and disarmed
the alarm. Again, she was home alone. No Trinity. Nowadays, Trinity would take the dog, Randi, back and forth with her when
she’d come.

Rebe opened the mail she’d left on the island top earlier, and read the advance, save-the-date announcement of Darla’s big,
grand opening of her store that July. Brown Sugar would be a reality. She smiled in her friend’s honor and secured the announcement
on her refrigerator with a butterfly magnet.

Feeling all alone, she opened the fridge and stared between the bottle of Smartwater and a lone watermelon wine cooler Trinity
had left, remembering that even Magnolia had a boyfriend now, who’d proposed, only Magnolia hadn’t accepted yet. But Rebe
felt Magnolia should go for it, even though she knew Magnolia was probably still playing what-if games in her head about Neal.

Her friends seemed to be doing well. They met their New Year’s promises just fine.
Hell, I guess I met mine too. I became a freak. Mission accomplished.
She gave a laugh at her self-sarcasm.

Rebe took the wine cooler, first drink she’d have in years, and then her purse, and went up the winding stairs and down the
hall to her solo bedroom suite that she and Randall once shared. She stood in the doorway before stepping inside and looked
around, remembering when they’d bought the expensive, oversized maple furniture for the house that was now all hers, every
single square foot of the place. But as she examined the space, to her it seemed empty.

Bang. Boom.

Rebe jumped out of her skin at the sound of a loud crack and a thud, and then heard footsteps, moving fast.

“Trinity,” she belted out in a questionable panic, turning around to tiptoe down the hall, and then as she peeked over the
banister she saw a blue skullcap, pulled down over the head of someone. She screamed with every ounce of her one-hundred-forty-pound
body and ran back toward her room, hurrying to press the door shut and lock it. She sprinted to the bed and tossed her wine
cooler and purse onto the mattress, dumping everything out of her purse, snatching her cell and dialing 911 in a panic, just
as the sound of stomping made its way to her door and fists pounded in a furious cadence, assisting a male’s words. “Open
this fucking door. Freak ass bitch.”

Before Rebe could even get an answer on the phone, all at once the male kicked in the door, ran and leapt to her, grabbed
her phone, slammed it against the wall, used a back hand to scoop all that was on the bed onto the wood floor, even the cooler
that shattered against the wall, and threw Rebe on the bed. The force made her bounce like a handball and she hollered like
she had been shot.

The male spoke deep and demanded, “Shut the fuck up. You yell again and I’ll stick this gun inside your funky monkey and pull
the fucking trigger.”

Rebe yelled in her head, mind racing a mile a minute, feeling like she was about to have a massive coronary. She felt her
own vibration of her heart thump that bounced off the mattress, as though it received the message from her brain that this
man had the sick mind of a killer. He slid off his knit facemask, and his manic, psychotic stare made her life flash before
her eyes.

In his beady, cloudy eyes, Rebe saw a flashback of her mother, manic and psychotic as she was, lying on her, with a hammer
in her hand, saying, “You’re a damn ho.” His eyes matched the eyes of her mother, who’d attacked her own seventeen-year-old
daughter. And then killed her own twenty-year-old son. All because Rebe was promiscuous.

The male with the gun gave her a look of hate, and said into her ear, holding the gun to her chest, “Now suck my dick.” His
breath was again warm and stale, and this time reeked of tequila. His gold teeth gleamed. Her strip club rapper fan had followed
her home, turned stalker.

The male backed up, unzipped his pants, and pulled out his ashy hardness. “Touch it,” was his order.

She didn’t. She turned her nose at it.

“Bitch, touch it. Fucking ho.” He reached a higher notch of anger.

She did, though with fingertips only.

“You be slick and try to bite it, and I’ll show you what head really feels like. Your head splattered all over this damn room.
Now swallow it.”

Rebe squeezed her eyes tight, and guided him into her mouth at the same time she felt her throat start to gag all on its own.
She insisted that for the life of her, she’d better press her lips to his dry dick-skin.

She did.

“Deeper.”

She went deeper, feeling the coldness of the pistol’s barrel on her temple, his other hand on the back of her head, pressing
her down farther to force her into a bobbing motion.

She gagged harder at the taste of his salty, musty penis, and felt a little throw up in the back of her mouth, and swallowed,
and in that swallow she took a little of his sperm, and then she made a “Puh” sound, spitting onto the bed.

He still spilled the rest of his fluid with a despising look on his face, like there was no ecstasy in the act of his sick
orgasm whatsoever. He didn’t even grunt or groan. He just said, “I should slap you for spittin’.”

She frowned deep, and wiped her lips.

“See, I knew you’d do it. All you had to do earlier was go down like I told you. But you had to have an attitude in the club
because you thought you had some backup with the security folks, huh? Well, I will not be denied. You must not know who I
am.”

She looked away and wondered how quick she’d need to move to knock his pistol out of his hand and run.

“I’ll have to show you some more, though. Now turn over on your stomach, bitch.”

The words
turn over
rang in her head like someone had just rung her mind-chimes like a cymbal.
Turn over
were just the words her mother said before she hauled off and bashed the back of Rebe’s head in with a large hammer, causing
head trauma that would fuck up the rest of Rebe’s entire life. She hated lying on her stomach. She never, ever slept on her
stomach.

She halfway turned in slow motion.

He snarled and assisted by turning her the other half of the way with a yank.

Rebe held her breath, either waiting for the firing of the gun, or the stabbing of his pitiful penis inside of her. He pulled
up her skirt and snatched off her boy shorts and thong, jerking her lower body to prop it up high. She shut her eyes while
her head traveled to the here and now, and she even thought she heard the sound of her old neighbor’s German shepherd barking,
just as it did back when her face was to the mattress when she was a child.

She felt the male shove his once-again hard dick in her vagina from the back. And something told her now was the time to turn
around and elbow him in his Adam’s apple, letting out every bit of anger she’d felt for the past twenty-eight years of her
life on his crazy black ass, even if it meant getting shot.

“Mommy.” Rebe swore she was dreaming, thinking back to Erotic City. She hadn’t heard the word
mommy
since then. And the barking sounded louder. And louder.

Just when Rebe succeeded at aiming her sights behind her, as the pressure of the male’s hand around the back of her neck eased,
she heard him make a pained squeal sound, like an involuntary throat choking, and saw his beady eyes triple in size and then
shut as he squinted.