“Please don’t do this. Don’t—”
“Baby, trust me. You’re gonna like it,” Woody said gruffly, slobbering on Arnell’s back. He held his fingers inside her, ramming her until she cried out in pain. Using his knees, he roughly parted Arnell’s thighs so that he could stand in between them.
“No!” Arnell clawed at the back of Woody’s hand, but he seemed to not care that she was scratching him in her struggle to get him to release his death-like grip on her. Gasping for each breath she took, Arnell broke out in a cold sweat as her heart pounded in her own ears.
“Please! Stop!”
Suddenly, Woody yanked his fingers out of Arnell. He put his forearm on her upper back. He pushed her forward, forcing her downward until she was bent over the back of the sofa. Her face kissed the back cushion while the top of her head pressed into the seat.
“No . . . no . . . no!” She clawed frantically.
Woody was deaf to Arnell’s cries. He held her down with one hand and with the other, he took his penis and rammed himself inside her vagina.
“Oh, God! Please. We need a condom!”
“I don’t use condoms.”
With each mighty thrust, Arnell cried out.
With each mighty thrust, Woody grew more powerful. He panted, “Oh, yes. You’re worth my money. Oh, baby.”
Five
The Brooklyn Café was jamming. The music was loud. The music was hot. Next to The Lab in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the Café in Flatbush was Trena’s favorite spot to party. That was because there were always older guys hanging at the Café and they were as fine as they could be. Omar hadn’t shown up yet, and really, he didn’t have to. Trena wasn’t having any trouble getting guys to dance with. She was having a good time. The music was tight! She hadn’t been able to sit down longer than three minutes before the music and a fine brother took hold of her and pulled her back out onto the dance floor. Usher, with his fine self, was her favorite singer, but when it came to rap, Jay-Z was off the hook. His pulsating rap had the Café jumping.
Trena had danced so much, she was hot, sweaty, and dying of thirst. “I need something to drink!” she shouted to Malik, her tall dance partner. With him she had danced three times.
“Me, too!” Malik kept on dancing.
Trena stopped dancing. “Well! Ain’t you gonna get me a wine cooler, a soda, a drop of water, something?”
“Baby,” Malik said, slowing his roll, “I don’t own no store. You want somethin’ to drink, you better pull out some Lincolns.” He danced away from Trena, leaving her in the middle of the dance floor with her jaw dropped.
“You cheap, scandalous punk!”
Dancing next to Trena, her main girl Alyson laughed. “Girl, these fools ain’t got no money. The truth is, they’re hoping that you’ll buy them a drink.”
“I don’t think so. My momma didn’t raise no fool.”
“Mine neither,” Alyson said, raising her hand for a high five.
Trena acknowledged her friend with an enthusiastic high palm slap.
Alyson’s forgotten dance partner pulled her back to him. She snatched her arm out of his grasp. “Hold up! You don’t know me like that.”
“Damn, baby,” the tall, lanky boy said, “don’t go postal. You dancin’ or not?”
Flattening out her hand in his face, Alyson rolled her eyes. “Not. Come on, Trena, let’s get something to drink.” She linked arms with Trena, they started walking away.
The boy flipped them the bird. “Damn lezzies.”
They both heard him. Trena turned back, pulling Alyson with her. Trena marched right up to the boy and boldly pressed her firm breast into his chest. She didn’t have on a bra, just the tight midriff tube top that pushed her breasts up and gave her enough cleavage to make her feel sexy. The boy didn’t back away. He waited for Trena to make her move.
Smiling mischievously, Trena teasingly began rubbing her breast on the boy. “Can you handle this?”
“Can you handle this?” he asked, thrusting his pelvis into her.
She pressed back. The boy took hold of Trena’s hips and held her into his body. He slipped his thigh between her thighs. Ja Rule, with his raunchy, gravelly voice, was jamming with Ashanti on her new song, “Happy.” Trena’s blood was hot. It was on. In beat with the music, Trena and the smart-mouth boy both moved their hips. Trena felt his hardness on her thigh. With her arms hanging limply at her sides, she moved her hips in unison with his grinding. The boy, whose name Trena didn’t even know, began to grind slower and more intensly, pressing harder in between her thighs. She matched his grind and pressed back even harder. They were both beginning to sweat. People were starting to look at them. Trena didn’t care, she was going to make this fool eat his words.
A boy standing next to Alyson shouted, “Man, get that stuff!”
Alyson laughed nervously. “Girl, you so nasty.”
“I’m real nasty, ain’t I, baby?” Trena asked teasingly of her dance partner.
The boy could only groan. His eyes were closed. He licked his lips, wetting them. He gripped Trena’s behind, holding her tighter against his body.
“Man, hit that shit,” another boy said.
Girls were whispering to each other. Some giggled, while others frowned disapprovingly.
“Trena,” Alyson said, “let’s go.” A boy standing next to Alyson palmed her butt. She punched him in the arm. “Get off me! Jerk!”
The boy laughed.
Dancers close by pressed in closer. In the low light, Trena saw the excited but curious faces around her. She had started this as a joke to show this fool that she was not a lesbian, but she was starting to enjoy not only the attention she was commanding, but the feeling she was getting in her body. She could feel herself juice. She found herself getting lost in the moment. This was the second time in a matter of hours that she had done this with a boy. Maybe she was ready to go all the way despite her promise. Where was Omar?
“Trena,” Alyson said, pulling on Trena’s arm, “this is real nasty, girl. You better come on.”
Trena studied her partner’s face. His eyes were still closed, his teeth were bared, sweat was beaded up on his forehead. His grinding, once in sync with the music, was now faster and more intense. She felt him beginning to tremble. She had him where she wanted him.
With both hands, Trena suddenly pushed really hard on the boy’s chest. He tried to hold onto her. She punched him in the chest and then quickly jumped back when he let go of her completely.
“Come on, baby. How you gon do me like this?” Holding onto himself, the boy took a step toward Trena, but she put her hand up, stopping him.
She looked him up and down. “Oops. Did a lezzie do that?”
“Baby, I was just joking.”
“No, you weren’t, but I got your lezzie and then some,” Trena said, proud of herself. Again, she and Alyson linked arms and walked off the dance floor.
“Oh, shit,” a guy said, laughing. “That’s cold.”
“Man, you ’bout to explode!” another guy said.
The crowd laughed.
“Man, you better go beat your meat,” the same guy said.
“Shut the fuck up!” the boy snapped.
The laughing continued.
Still holding on to himself, the boy searched the crowd. His eyes came to rest on a shapely, cleavage-exposed girl a few feet away.
“Don’t even think about it,” the girl warned, backing up. Along with her, several girls did the same, while others didn’t move an inch.
One girl, standing her ground, dared, “You come near me, I’ll take that thing off and feed it to my dog.”
“I know that’s right,” another girl confirmed. “I got a pit bull at home and he loves fresh meat.”
The crowd roared.
Embarrassed, the boy let go of himself. He squared his shoulders. “That bitch wasn’t all that.” He walked cooly through the crowd in the opposite direction of Trena. Behind him, the snickering and laughter continued.
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Sitting at a table off in the corner, Trena and Alyson were having a good laugh of their own. Tears rolled down their cheeks.
A stylishly dressed young woman stopped at the table. “You girls having a good time?”
“Yep,” Trena managed to say before she lost it, doubling over the table, laughing hard while Alyson, trying to catch her breath, sounded more like she was crying.
“Ladies, ladies, what you did wasn’t all that funny.”
“It was to us,” Arnell said, still laughing.
“No doubt. Mind if I sit,” the woman said, sitting before either Trena or Alyson gave her the okay. “What are you girls drinking?”
“Why? Are you buying?” Trena asked, suddenly serious.
“I might be, unless you rather I didn’t.”
Trena and Alyson exchanged suspicious glances. They looked the woman over.
“You a lezzie?” Alyson asked.
“If I were, neither one of you would be my type.”
Alyson relaxed. “That’s okay by me. I’ll take a wine cooler. I’m thirsty.”
“Me, too,” Trena said.
“Jeanette,” the woman said.
“Huh?” Alyson asked.
“My name is Jeanette.”
“Oh. I’m Alyson. This is my girl, Trena.”
“Trena, you’re a nasty girl,” Jeanette said, taking a ten-dollar bill from her wallet. She handed it to Alyson.
Taking the bill, Alyson stood. “See, I told you you was nasty.”
“So. I got it that way.”
“Hot mama, huh?” Jeanette asked, amused. “Alyson, I’ll take a wine cooler, too. Strawberry.”
Alyson strolled off, weaving through the dancers, to get to the bar.
Suspicious of Jeanette’s generosity, Trena looked her over on the sly as best she could in the low candlelight there was on the table. The woman wasn’t old, though she wasn’t as young as she and Alyson. She had thick, long, black, straight hair—probably a weave—and she was pretty, in an overly made-up sort of way. If Trena could tell that in the dimly lit club, then homegirl was wearing way too much makeup. Maybe in the daylight she was a fright, but that wouldn’t explain why she was buying them drinks.
“How come you buying us a drink?”
“Can’t a sister buy a sister a drink?”
“Oh, it’s a respect thang, huh?”
“Something like that. When I saw you on the dance floor, I thought to myself, ‘that was me when I was a teenager.’”
“So you was a diva, huh?”
Smiling, Jeanette flipped her hair off her neck. “I guess I was. By the way, how old are you?”
“Eighteen,” Trena lied. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-four.”
“That’s not so old. You can still hang.”
Jeanette smiled. “Thanks.”
“You here by yourself, Jeanette?”
“I’m with some friends, but I lost sight of them. We’ll hook up before we leave.”
Trena began bobbing her head to the music. For a minute she and Jeanette watched the dancers do their thang. “Jeanette, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Did I really look nasty when I was . . . you know . . . doing that to that boy?”
Jeanette nodded.
“Well, he asked for it. He called me and Alyson lesbians.”
“You’re still a virgin, aren’t you?”
That question surprised Trena. “No . . . maybe.”
“Honey, either you’re a virgin or you’re not.”
“Well, I’m—”
“If you weren’t a virgin, Trena, you would have never played with that boy like that. Girls that know better, don’t play with fire. You got that boy hot to the point of boiling, and then you, literally, pushed him out. If you hadn’t been in a public place, that boy would have never let you walk away. The worst case scenario, you would have been raped.”
Trena sassily shook her head. “I don’t think so. I would have whipped his ass.”
“How old did you say you were?”
“Eighteen.”
Jeanette looked Trena dead in the eye. “Say again.”
“Well, I’ll be eighteen in July,” she said, sticking with her lie.
“Seeing what I saw you do, how did you manage to keep your virginity?”
“I promised my mother I would keep my legs closed until after I graduated high school, which is in three weeks.”
“Having a hard time, aren’t you?”
Trena rolled her eyes. “It’s a damn pain. Actually, I’m thinking about leaving home after graduation and shacking up with a friend of mine. Then I’ll be able to do anything I want. My sister won’t be on my back all the time.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“I guess she’s home by now.”
“Won’t she have something to say about you leaving home?”
“Look, Jeanette, I’m not a little girl anymore. I can make my own decisions.”
“Then why are you still a virgin?”
“Hey, I can give up my virginity whenever I feel like it. It’s mine to give and nobody’s to take.”
“I hear you, Miss Thang, don’t go gettin’ huffy.” Jeanette smirked in her amusement of Trena. “Just a word of advice—when you do give it up, don’t waste it on these little boys. You need to be with a man who knows how to treat a pretty girl.”
Trena smiled. “I know that’s right.” She liked that Jeanette thought she was pretty. “The guy I was dancing with wouldn’t even buy me a bottle of water.”
“That’s my point. Don’t give anything away for free—not a feel, not a shaft-rubbing grind. Even that has a price. But more importantly, Trena, check yourself. Nobody likes a tease. Don’t be advertising something you’re not prepared to sell.”
“But I—”
“Jeanette, we’ve been looking all over for you,” a woman said as she and two well-dressed men approached the table.
“I’ve been sitting right here. Did you find Lenard?”
“No, he’s not here. Look, we’re ready to go.”
Standing, Jeanette looked at Trena. “Maybe we’ll bump into each other again. You remember what I told you.”
“I will. But what about your drink and your change?”
“You and your friend can keep the money and share the cooler. Next time, you can treat me.” That said, Jeanette was gone.
Left alone, Trena thought about what Jeanette had said. Not that she’d said anything new, but Jeanette confirmed for her that a boy was not what she wanted. As much as she liked Omar, she had to admit that it irked her that he was always asking her to lend him money. She had lent him enough to buy the leather jacket that he wanted but couldn’t afford. He was forever saying that he was going to pay her back but that day hadn’t come yet. Maybe she had better rethink losing her virginity to his cheap behind. Not to mention that Omar had long ago lost his virginity so he wasn’t giving her anything special in return. If anything, if she did have sex with him, he had better be able to give her something special like a gold bracelet.
“Hey, baby, wanna dance?”
Trena cut her eyes up at the fine-looking Hispanic boy that had snuck up on her. “You got any money?”
“What?” he asked, frowning. “You gold-diggin’?”
“Yep.”
He flipped his hand at her disgustedly and walked away.
“Same to you, brother.” Trena flipped her hand back at him. At least she didn’t waste her time on him. From now on, she wasn’t wasting her time on any broke brothers. If a brother didn’t step up to her right, his feelings were going to get hurt, for real.
Six
Arnell wrapped herself tightly in the red silk kimono taken from the bedroom closet. She sat with her legs tucked under her ravaged body across from the sofa that she would never sit on again. She felt like nothing. She felt dirty. Tears flowed endlessly from her, although, aloud, she was not crying. Never in a million years would
she have believed that something like that would have happened to her. Even when, in her heart, she didn’t want to have sex, she had always given her body without resistance to the many men she had slept with over the years. None had ever had to take her by force and make her feel like she was a nobody.
Woodruff Parker, with all his success, with all of his wealth, proved to be the lowest of bastards. The five-hundred-dollar tip he left on the bar after he downed two more brandies could never make up for what he did to her.
“My time is valuable,” he had said. He’d wiped himself off with the linen napkin from the bar and left Arnell bent over the back of the sofa, angry, humiliated, and sore. When she could, she straightened her sore back and made it into the shower to scrub away the evidence of the rape that seeped down her thighs. She was hurting and she was scared. Not of pregnancy, she was on the pill. Disease. What if she got something from him? Oh, God. If James ever found out about tonight or about any part of her past, he would never marry her. Just this past November he had been elected councilman for central Brooklyn. Secretly, Arnell had prayed that James would lose. When he won, she cried, but James had taken her tears for tears of joy. His budding political career would never tolerate a wife who had worked as a prostitute in a brothel, no matter how fancy the establishment. James could lose his elected office as well as his standing in his father’s church. And, oh, Lord, what about Reverend Stanton? What wouldn’t he do to save his son from her? It was all too draining. Arnell didn’t want to think about it. She could make her life so much easier if she broke off the engagement, but how could she? James was her salvation. If he didn’t marry her and get her away from Esther, she’d lose her mind. Which is why there could never be another night like this one. Arnell had to make sure of that.
“You decent?” Esther asked, smiling broadly as she entered the room.
Arnell dried her face with the pink tissue she held.
The Honey Well Page 4