Big Juicy Lips

by Allison Hobbs

  Brick arched his back; pulled up Misty’s legs. Obligingly, she wrapped them around his back. Aiming for her secret spot, he drove in deep and hard. He knew he’d touched it when she started shaking, whispering his name. Instead of hitting it hard, he pulled back.

  “Why you stop?” Misty snarled. “You was just about to hit my spot.”

  “You confusing me. Calling me Brick. What is it? Am I Brick or am I your bitch?”

  “Shut up and fuck me. I’ll call you whatever the fuck I want.”

  Brick took the insult; felt it was deserved. Determined to make Misty feel good, he served long strokes, as he sought to relocate her spot. He hit it. She cried out. He pressed against it; driving her wild. Writhing with carnal pleasure, Misty’s vagina clenched as ripples of an orgasm rocked her body. She cursed Brick. Debased him. Called him obscene names, inciting him to release his seed, joining her as she writhed in the final moments of gasping completion.

  While Misty lay panting for breath, Brick turned on the hot water faucet, warming her bath. He looked over at his pretty little princess, curled on the floor in a knot.

  “You want me to give you a bath?”

  “Yes,” Misty whispered, hugging herself.

  “Come on, baby, let me clean you up.” Brick lifted her in his arms and lowered her into the warm, sudsy water.

  “I love you, Misty. With all my heart.”

  “I know you do, Brick. But you can’t expect much from me. Not right now.”

  He nodded. “I don’t expect nothing from you. You feelin’ ya boy, Dane, right now. I can dig it. Like you said, we gon’ ride it out. In the meantime, I’ll keep busy—work hard. Feel me? Go ahead and set up as many appointments for me as you want. Shit, give me some Red Bull and a couple swigs of ginseng and I’m good,” Brick said with false bravado. Determined to show love, he washed every inch of her body, inside and behind her ears, between her fingers and toes. When he got to her vagina, Misty opened her legs. With extra loving care, he guided his cloth-covered finger inside her tunnel, twisting it to thoroughly clean every crevice.

  Brick felt needed. Loneliness, destitution, and homelessness no longer loomed.

  Misty had her eyes closed. She wasn’t listening to one word that Brick was saying. Imagining herself preparing a romantic dinner for two, her mind was on soft music and candlelight.

  CHAPTER 30

  1990

  Drunk, Rodney had trouble getting his newly acquired key to fit inside the lock. After a few moments of fumbling, the mission was finally accomplished, but the chain, locked in place, would not allow admittance inside the untidy, ramshackle house. Though short in stature—standing at only five feet three inches and slight of frame, Rodney, consumed with alcohol and fury, kicked the door with the force of a big, brawny man.

  “Lynette! Open the damn door.” Through the opening he could see her slew of kids transfixed, watching television. “Will one of y’all open this damn door?” Not one pair of eyes left the television screen. The only child concerned about his locked-out status seemed to be the son of the crack addict, who lived a couple houses down the block. The boy, Baron Kennedy, came running down the stairs, eager to accommodate.

  The neighbor’s child was tall for his age. He easily unlocked the sliding chain. Rodney stepped inside and popped the boy upside the head. “What took your ass so damn long?”

  “I was in the bathroom, Mr. Rodney.”

  “Look at this place,” Rodney complained, looking around at the dusty, neglected home. He stumbled over scattered toys and other odds and ends that were strewn about. Kicking items out of his way, he staggered to the kitchen. He glared at Lynette Baxter, the most recent woman to share her home, her food, and her bed with him. She wasn’t much to look at, skinny with uncombed, knotty hair, but she provided a temporary roof over his head. Until something better came along, Lynette and her brood of crumb snatchers would have to do. He looked around the kitchen, turning up his nose, sneering at Lynette, the peeling paint on the wall, the dishes in the sink, the overflowing trash, and the dirty kitchen floor.

  “How come this place gotta look like this? I can’t stand a trifling woman.” Rodney gave Lynette an extra-long sneer. Yeah, he’d be out of that joint just as soon as he stumbled across better pickings.

  Mouth slightly slack, eyes focused on nothing, Lynette mechanically stirred a pot of rice. Milky water boiled over, ran down the pot.

  “Woman, you ’bout to burn the house down,” Rodney hollered. “Can’t stand a junkie, neither,” he complained. “Can’t you hear?” he hollered. “Turn that burner down before this dump catches on fire.”

  Rodney bumped Lynette out of the way, turned down the burner. Jolted out of her drug-induced stupor, Lynette peered at him questioningly. “Damn, woman. You too high to be fooling around with fire.” He lifted the lid to see what they were having for dinner. “What’s this?”

  “Rice.”

  “Rice! That’s it? Nothing to go with it?”

  “I’m outta stamps.”

  “You ain’t got no food stamps! Sheit! I’m not used to living like this!” He banged his hand on the countertop. From the squalid living room, the volume of the television went up to full blast. “What’s wrong with your kids? They deaf or something?”

  Lynette scratched and shrugged. “Guess you making so much noise, they can’t hear their show.”

  “Sheit!” he repeated. “And another thing,” he said, frowning deeply. “Don’t you think you got enough kids running around here? When is that boy’s mother coming back for him?”

  Lynette shrugged. “Shuggie come and go; she ain’t really say when she planned on picking Baron up. You know how she do. She’ll turn up. Give it another day or so.”

  “Whatchu mean, she come and go? We got enough mouths to feed up in here; we don’t need one more.” He stood, huffing for a few seconds, and then bellowed, “Baron!”

  Wide-eyed, the child dashed into the kitchen.

  “Where’s your momma at, boy?” Rodney gave Baron a long, evil look, causing the child to stutter in fear.

  “I…I…she said…” The boy looked down, tearful. “I don’t know.”

  “Whatchu mean, you don’t know? I’ll be damned. Your mother done dumped you like yesterday’s trash.”

  Losing control of his emotions, tears fell from the child’s eyes. “She said that she’d be right back.”

  “That was over a week ago!” Rodney blasted. “We ain’t got enough food to feed your hungry ass for another week or two.”

  Rodney folded his arms and glared at six-year-old Baron. “Your mother ain’t shit; pulling disappearing acts when she knows she got a child to look after.” He shook his head. “If your own mother don’t give a fuck about you, why should I?”

  Weeping and not knowing what to say, Baron shrugged his shoulders.

  “Stop making him cry, Rodney,” Lynette slurred. “Shuggie’s gon’ turn up. She’s out there doing her thing—getting high. Why you letting it bother you so much?”

  “Because!” Rodney huffed. “People with kids need to get high on they own time. I don’t see you leaving your pack of kids on nobody. Am I right or wrong?”

  “You right,” Lynette promptly responded. “But…”

  “But nothing. Shuggie’s taking advantage because you too soft; you let her get away with too much. I got some words for her when she gets back.” Rodney hitched up his pants. “I’m the man of this house now. Ain’t gon’ be no more getting over. If Shuggie wanna go get high somewhere, she gon’ have to take her boy with her.”

  “She gave me some food stamps,” Lynette offered meekly.

  “How long ago was that? Whatever she gave you sure ain’t helping. Anytime you down to cooking up nothing but a pot of rice, it don’t seem like she gave up too many of her stamps. I’ll tell you who she gave ’em to—the drug man. Uh-huh, Frankie’s probably in Pathmark filling up his shopping cart right now.”

  Rodney scowled at the unsightly pot on the stove a
nd then turned his hateful gaze on the cowering child as if the boy had personally devoured all the food in the house. “I oughta whoop that ass.” Rodney started the slow, torturous process of unbuckling his belt.

  “It ain’t Baron’s fault,” Lynette said, giving the trembling boy a sad shake of her head.

  “This boy can’t stay here and just live off the fat of the land, Lynette. After I give him a good ass whooping for using up my heat, water, and eating up more than his share of the food around here, I want you to call Children’s Services and drop a dime on his no-good mother. You gon’ have to turn this boy in. We can’t keep feeding his ungrateful ass.”

  “I don’t want no social services agency snooping around my house. No way! Shuggie go out on binges for ’bout a week or so, but she always comes back. That’s the truth. You’ll see.”

  Rodney rolled his eyes at Lynette and then fixed his gaze on Baron.

  Lynette sighed. “All right then, if it’ll make you feel better, go ahead and give the boy a whooping.” She flopped down in a kitchen chair, scratching. “I can’t worry myself about it.” She raised her hands in weary surrender.

  Looking from Rodney to Lynette, little Baron pleaded for mercy with his terrified eyes.

  “Get over here, lil’ nigga.” Rodney held the leather belt in his hand.

  “Don’t beat him too bad, Rodney. He can’t help the way his mother acts,” she appealed to Rodney.

  Rodney stuck his chest out, puffed up. “Oh, now you gon’ tell me how to whoop a hardhead child?”

  “I’m just saying…” She lowered her head, scratched her arm. “If I let you beat on him, you better not call up social services. I can’t have those people snooping around here. We’ll deal with Baron in our own way. Okay?”

  Rodney grunted a half-hearted agreement, raised his hand high and laid his belt across Baron’s backside. At the sound of the first lash of the belt, six pairs of feet stampeded into the kitchen. “Ooo, Baron’s getting a whooping,” one child said, eyes gleaming in awe.

  “Why Mr. Rodney giving Baron a whooping, Mommy?” asked Sharday, the oldest.

  Lynette rolled her eyes up to the ceiling in exasperation. “Rodney, this ain’t right,” she said, rocking and scratching. “The kids were quiet. Now they all worked up. All this commotion is messing with my high!”

  Rodney shot a menacing look at Lynette’s six children, shook the belt threateningly. “Take y’all asses back to the living room, so I can handle my business in privacy.” The children shrank back, but didn’t go very far. Watching Baron get whooped with a belt was too interesting to miss.

  A year passed. Baron’s mother, Shuggie, never did turn up. There were rumors that she’d ended up in the trunk of a drug dealer’s car; shot and dumped for neglecting to pay a large tab. No one really knew or cared; except Shuggie’s son, Baron. But there was no way for him to solve the mystery. There was nothing he could do.

  Rodney stuck around, mainly because he took a liking to whooping the boy’s behind. He convinced Lynette to go over to the welfare office and get Baron added to her check. To Lynette’s surprise, the county people didn’t come nosing around. She was required to file for custody, which she easily got. Children’s Services turned Baron over to Lynette without even so much as a household visit. Naming Lynette as a legal guardian was cheaper and more expedient than searching for emergency foster care.

  With Baron’s contribution to the amount of food stamps, Rodney was mildly satisfied. Baron’s situation worked to everyone’s benefit; except his own.

  Rodney kept the docile youngster in line by giving him a daily whooping. Baron tried to be a good boy, tried to prevent the fiery burn of the belt against his skin. But to no avail. There was no rhyme or reason to ass-whooping time. Baron could be immersed in a favorite cartoon with Lynette’s six children, and Mr. Rodney would stagger in and announce, “It’s ass-whooping time,” as he unbuckled his belt.

  “Ooo, you gon’ get it, Baron,” the six children would taunt. Instantly, Baron would walk a solemn path toward Mr. Rodney’s waiting strap.

  Sometimes, the lashes took place downstairs in front of the children, but most times Baron was marched upstairs to Lynette and Rodney’s bedroom. “Oh, you don’t feel that fire, boy?” Mr. Rodney would blare, applying harder belt strokes if Baron didn’t scream loud enough during the assault.

  Whooping ass made Rodney’s dick angry…hard…erect. After every whooping, he’d dismiss the whimpering child and call Lynette and order her to assume a prone position on the bed. She’d grit her teeth and spread her legs and clutch the bed covers in preparation of a brutal, sexual assault.

  When Mr. Rodney was too drunk to give Baron a physical beat down, he used verbal abuse to terrorize the young child.

  “You better watch your step, boy. You better do as I say, and do it quick! Shape up or ship out. You’s an ungrateful lil’ nigga. Keep fucking with me and I’ll tell you what’s gon’ happen to you.” At this point, Rodney would twist his drunken face into a detestable contortion. “You gon’ wind up right where you belong—outside. Homeless! Out there on skid row living with the bums. That’s what happens to ungrateful lil’ niggas. They end up living underneath a bridge, inside a cardboard box.”

  The threat of having to live under a bridge would send the young boy into tremors of fear—tears and awful, wailing. “Please, Mr. Rodney. Please don’t throw me out in the street! I’ll be good. I promise, I’ll be real good, Mr. Rodney,” the defenseless child would plead.

  During ass-whooping time, hearing such a high degree of begging made Rodney feel big and powerful, inspiring the dwarfed man to deliver hard, revitalized blows.

  It was just a matter of time before Lynette and her six children jumped on the taunting bandwagon. “You better wash them dishes before you end up homeless,” they’d chant.

  Homeless! That word could produce instant results, could get the young orphan moving swiftly, tackling all household chores: cooking, cleaning, laundry—and of course, he remained a human whipping post.

  Before long, Mr. Rodney had progressed from alcohol to drugs. Baron came in handy when Rodney was short of cash or owed his dealer money. Baron’s services were exchanged for drugs.

  “Hey, boy! No school for you, today. Frankie got some work for you to do. Put that book bag down and take your ass on over to his house.”

  Baron removed the book bag.

  Rodney studied the boy’s appearance. “Nah, you better keep that strapped on your back. Makes it look good, just in case those truant officers see you. You can tell ’em you late for school. Make sure you don’t give Frankie a hard time. Frankie’s real good to us, so make sure you show the man some gratitude for giving you work to do,” Rodney reminded the child as he fondled a crack vial. “I know you don’t wanna end up living in a cardboard box, so get on over there and do whatever he wants you to do. Clean up his yard, wash his car. Try to take notice of the things that need to be done. Make yourself useful,” Rodney implored the motherless child. “If I don’t teach you nothing else in life, boy, I’m gonna make sure you show gratitude to the people kind enough to take care of you.”

  Baron noticed lots of fallen leaves when he arrived at the home. “You want me to rake up the leaves in the yard,” he inquired, making himself useful.

  “Nah, not today, lil’ playa. I got another job for you,” Frankie said, studying Baron. “I got some bricks that need to be moved. You’re perfect for the job. Ain’t nobody gonna suspect a lil’ kid of carrying bricks of weed in his book bag.”

  Shortly after, Frankie started referring to the child as Lil’ Playa and sometimes he called him Brick.

  CHAPTER 31

  Present

  Mr. Rodney died of renal failure a few months before Brick got sent to the juvenile center. Brick wept bitterly at his tormentor’s funeral. Mr. Rodney had been the only father figure he’d ever known. The violent-tempered man had convinced Brick that he deserved every beating he gave him; he taught Brick to respec
t him for taking the time to teach him the meaning of gratitude. His own mother had run off and left him like a piece of trash. Mr. Rodney told him he should have been grateful that he and Miss Lynette were kind enough to raise some trash that had been dumped at their door.

  “Instead of crying like a lil’ bitch, you should be thanking me,” Mr. Rodney sometimes said after giving Brick a harsh whooping. Those words were usually followed with, “Show some gratitude, lil’ nigga!”

  “Dane and I are gonna talk business when he wakes up. After that, I need some alone time with him, so you can take the truck and drive yourself to your gigs,” Misty told Brick.

  Brick swallowed the lump of pain that formed in his throat. Bearing Mr. Rodney’s words in mind, Brick said, “Okay, thanks.” Masking humiliation, hiding hurt feelings, Brick stood tall. His body language and stoic expression didn’t give a hint of the pain that threatened to stoop his shoulders and fill his eyes with tears.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll fill the tank when I get finished working,” he threw in. Maybe he’d get some alone time, too, if he acted grateful.

  Misty nodded absently, poked her head in the freezer, checking out packs of frozen chicken. “How long has this chicken been in here?” she asked, as she inspected the stickers on the packages, her face tight with concentration as she searched for an expiration date.

  “Not that long,” Brick responded. “It’s still good. You want me to cook dinner for the three of us when I get home tonight?”

  “No, that’s aiight. I got this. I’m gonna fix a romantic dinner for me and my boo.” She blushed and then covered her mouth to suppress a girlish giggle. He’d heard that joyful tinkle in her laughter back when she was dealing with Shane. The only difference was Brick wasn’t jealous of Shane. He loved Shane. He was his best friend and Brick was more than willing to share Misty with his main man. He and Shane had an unspoken agreement. Shane knew Misty was crazy over him, but he also knew that taking her away from Brick would tear him to pieces.