I could tell when the kiss moved from something to do to her enjoyment. Her hands moved from her sides to hold his arms. She always did that when a kiss was sending jolts of electricity up her spine. Demi’s hand slipped down that dip in her back to her ass. I rolled my shoulders to keep cool. Seeing another man possess her so easily stabbed at my ego, even though it was what I wanted.
Mona pulled away from the kiss first. She stumbled back, gazing up at him still. It was almost as if she was in awe. As if she hadn’t expected that kind of kiss from him. She ran a hand through her braids again. Pivoted on her heels and sauntered back over to me. Her breathing was deep when she sat back down. Like she was having a hard time catching her breath. Eyes hooded. Lips, kiss swollen.
Demi soon sat down next to me, and he was as calm as a cucumber, but the bulge in his pants told me she had at least moved him in some way. Even his pupils were dilated. It pleased me that the attraction they were both trying to deny was evident. The way he’d kissed her made me want to kiss him. So I did. I leaned over, brought his face to mine. I had to show Mona the way he and I shared intimacy, just as I’d shown him what intimacy was like between her and me.
His lips brushed mine. He was tense, but there was also surrender. He took a deep breath. Our eyes connected for a brief second before he gave in. His velvety tongue searched out mine in a sensual mating ritual. One that made me wish we were home, so I could show him just how much his kiss had lit a fire in me.
“What the fuck is this faggot shit?” said a male voice. It broke my concentration.
I pulled away from Demi. My head turned toward the voice. A black man with locs and an ankh necklace around his neck was staring us down from where he sat. On his face was a look that swayed between disgust and revulsion.
“Yo, what the fuck did we just watch?” a Hispanic brother asked.
A white girl with them said, “Ew. So she kissed one, and then he kissed him too?”
The bald-headed black man beside the Hispanic brother chimed in. “Yo, told you she was too fine to be a real woman. That bitch is probably a man too.”
“We are in Atlanta. That shit is sick. Yuck!” said a black woman with the group.
“Baby,” Mona said, laying a hand on my shoulder, “we can just leave.”
She knew my temper. Sometimes it was hair trigger.
The black man with the locs stood and said, “What the fuck you looking at, butt bandit? Take that shit down to Bulldogs or some shit. Nobody want to see that gay shit in here.”
I stood up. So did Demi. He placed himself between me and the man. The man with the locs was instantly flanked by the members of his group. The women were scowling at Mona. Last thing I wanted was for her or Demi to get hurt. I thought back to New York. Thought back to how my anger had almost gotten me prison time. I remembered how all my hard work with my students had gone to shit after I lost my cool.
But then I thought about whether I could just punch that nigga in his mouth. I’d show him a faggot. If he wanted to prove his manhood in the way of old, the way they used to do in the Africa his fake Hotep ass was so fond of, then I’d show him who the real man was. I’d cave his fucking face in, then fuck his woman over his unconscious body as a show of good faith.
“Keep staring, bitch boy, and we can get it popping,” his Hispanic friend said.
“Elliot, come on, baby,” Mona urged.
She knew better than to grab me, though. We’d had that conversation before. She was never to grab me in a hostile situation. It would leave me open to an attack. We’d had that talk after she tried to keep me from breaking stepfather number three’s face. So now she only talked and laid a hand on my back. There was fear in her voice. That was the only reason I backed off.
I also knew that if I had to fight, Demi would too. By the time we were done, Noir Eden would look like the seventh level of hell. So I swallowed down the bile that was my pride. I let all the homophobic shit that had spewed from their mouths roll off my back. I took Mona’s hand and backed away when Demi urged me to.
“Bet that’s a tranny,” one of the men said.
“Or not,” the black woman said. “Black women like her so desperate for a nigga, they’re taking faggots now. Bitch is probably a dyke too.”
Mona stopped and turned to glare at the woman. That fire was back in her eyes. I knew Mona. She was a fighter. She’d square up with the best of them. There was only so much she could take before she was ready to fight. She was dancing on that thin gray line. I moved in front of Mona, blocking her path to the women.
“Take it back,” she said as she tried to move past me and get to the woman.
“Or what, bitch? Don’t like to be called what you are?” someone in the group yelled.
The other one got a bit too close. She hawked up a wad of spit that flew over my shoulder, then landed on Mona’s neck. It was in that moment, I had a good mind to move and let Mona go after the woman. I wanted to set her free so she could unleash hell on earth. And Mona tried. She tried like hell to get away. It was like wrestling with a wild lion. But I wouldn’t let her go. There was no way I’d walk away if she fought.
I picked Mona up after she tried to move past me again. There was no need for me to let her fight after she’d just convinced me to walk away.
The women behind me laughed at her, antagonizing her. They wanted a fight, not knowing that they’d picked three of the craziest people in the club to start a fight with.
Mona
Waiting for the valet to bring Elliot’s truck around was nerve racking, but we had to get away. We needed to. The energy had gone from erotic to violent. I’d gone from imagining what it would be like to have Elliot and Demitri inside of me at the same time to wanting to kill a bitch. I paced the small area in front of the club as we waited.
“Calm down,” Demitri said to me.
“Bitch spit on me. She fucking spit on me,” I snapped, eyes narrowed as I stared at him.
In my hand was the napkin that had been given to me on the way out of the club by one of the patrons who had watched the whole thing. I shook my hands and rolled my shoulders, trying to get my anger in check. For a second, I had almost lost my cool. If I could have gotten past Elliot, I’d have beaten that woman to death. I was sure of it.
“Don’t understand why people just don’t leave folks alone. We weren’t bothering anybody, right?” I said, pacing, talking more to myself than to him.
Elliot had walked away with the valet to get his truck since the man couldn’t quite remember what his truck looked like, even though he had the ticket. Demitri was watching me. He was calm, like he was used to such bullshit. His hands were in his pockets as he stood like he was guarding me. The gray dress shirt he had on looked good on him. Hugged those muscles in his upper body like it had been made for him. He had small black hoop earrings in each of his ears, which hadn’t been there when I first met him. Tonight they looked good on him. Brought out that mysterious sexiness a bit more.
The straight-legged slacks he had on caressed the muscles in his thighs just enough to make any hot-blooded woman appreciate the time he spent in the gym. Those thick-ass eyebrows and long lashes almost made me forget I’d wanted to put my heel in someone’s eyes seconds ago.
“People are ignorant sometimes. No matter how hard it is, we have to let that shit roll off our shoulders,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah, but that bitch spit on me, Demitri.”
“Yeah, that was some foul shit.”
I was about to say something else, but Elliot’s headlights caught my attention. Demitri and I walked to the truck. He opened the passenger-side door for me. I thanked him, then got in the front seat.
“Shit,” I said before he shut the door.
“What?” he and Elliot asked at the same time.
“I left my purse in there,” I said.
“Come on. I’ll walk back in with you to get it,” Elliot said.
No,” Demitri interjected. “No, you won’t. I got it,�
� he said.
They shared a look. Demitri’s expression said he knew better than to let Elliot go back inside that club. He got back out of the truck and then took my hand to assist me. We told the guards at the door that I’d left my purse inside the club. Fortunately, they remembered us and let us back in without an issue. We walked back over to where we’d last been. There were other people there now, but luckily, my clutch was hidden in the corner of the sofa. I rushed to get it, grateful that it was still there.
I picked it up and looked inside it. I sighed. “My money is gone,” I said.
“How much was it?” Demitri asked.
“Only about three hundred dollars.”
“Your ID still in there?”
I nodded. “Room key is too.”
“That’s most important. You didn’t have any credit cards with you, did you?”
I shook my head.
“Good. Let’s go.”
And I would have left. I really would have, but those two women who were with the men who had insulted Demitri and Elliot? I’d seen them heading to the bathroom as we walked over. I didn’t know where the men where, but that didn’t matter. I’d seen the two women.
“Let me use the bathroom right quick,” I said.
Before Demitri could protest, I made my way to the back. Moved quickly so he couldn’t grab me or try to walk with me. I’d lied. Kind of. My hotel room key and my ID were in my bra. I could have left the clutch, to be honest, but my Taser was in there. Also, I’d needed to come back in to confront the bitch who had spit on me. That was what it all boiled down to. Spitting on someone was worse than hitting them, in my opinion. That had to be rectified.
There was a long line for the bathroom, and I knew the women couldn’t have made it in that quickly. And I was right. I saw the white girl heading through another door toward the back. There was a sign on the door that read SMOKE IN HERE.
I followed her. She pushed the door open and disappeared. I waited a few seconds and did the same. There was no room beyond the door. The door led outside. At the back of the club was an alleyway that was closed off. No cars could get in or out. The smell of smoke and marijuana told me that the area had long been used as a smoking area. The odious smell of trash singed my nose hairs.
They had moved off to a corner, just beyond the industrial-sized trash cans to the left. They glanced back, but since the lighting wasn’t that great, they really couldn’t see me. Still, I crouched down low, laid my clutch down by the door. The music from the club thumped so loudly, the sound of my footsteps disappeared into the bass of the music. Neither the white girl nor the black one noticed me. They turned back around and continued their conversation. Both of them were smoking while talking about the encounter.
“Girl, I still can’t believe that shit,” the white girl said.
“That bitch fucking two men she know fucking each other? Bitch gone catch AIDS, then be crying about it. She the kind of black bitch that fuck up the black community. Fucking them faggot-ass niggas,” the black one said.
The white girl laughed. “Is it that bad for the sisters out here? Y’all fucking the down-low dudes on purpose now?”
The black girl looked like she wanted to throw up. “Girl, I’d kill a nigga for some mess like that.”
I eased my way down the stairs. Picked up an empty beer bottle that had been discarded among the rest of the trash in one of the trash cans. Like I was a trained ninja, with stealth I didn’t know I possessed, I snuck up behind the women. Before the white girl could say it, her face told the black girl something was behind her. Just as the black girl turned and tried to scream, I brought the bottle around like I was swinging a Louisville Slugger. I hit that bitch so hard, I wasn’t sure if the beer bottle had shattered or if it was her jaw.
Her yell got caught in her throat. A gargled scream was all I heard as she fell to the ground, clutching her face, blood seeping through her fingers. The white girl, whose name I’d learned was Becky and who had blond hair, came for me. In the heels I wore, the bottom of my feet had started to sweat, so I slipped a few times while tussling with her. She pulled at my braids, and I put my foot in her pussy. I kicked that bitch so hard, I probably rearranged her cervix. She yelped and went falling to her knees. Her friend was still on the ground, whimpering and crying about her face.
“I need help,” the black girl cried as she lay on the ground.
I grabbed Becky by her blond hair. My fist repeatedly connected with her face—nose, eyes, mouth. She went down like a sack of potatoes. I was caught up in the moment. Becky was the one who had spit on me. I’d teach her to fix her mouth to spit on someone else. If I could have, I would have pulled her tongue from her fucking mouth.
I didn’t know that back in the club, the dread head had realized it was taking his two friends too long to come back inside. I had no idea that as he walked through the club to get to the back door, Demitri was walking to the bathroom to look for me.
The blood rush to my head was so loud, I was so into trying to cave Becky’s face in, that I didn’t hear the door open behind me. I didn’t hear the man rush to approach me. I felt someone yank me backward by the braids in my hair. The grip was so tight, it made my eyes water.
He spun me around. It was the black man with the locs. I didn’t even realize his hand was coming down on my face until it was too late. His big open palm connected with my right eye. The slap was so hard that even though I saw it was an open-palm hit, it felt as if I had been punched. I screamed. I screamed so loud that I didn’t recognize my own voice.
I was that fourteen-year-old little girl fighting my stepfather off me. That fear had been placed in my heart again. I’d said I’d never let another man touch me in such a manner and live to tell about it. That was when I remembered I’d laid my clutch down by the door to keep it cracked, because I wasn’t sure the door opened from the outside.
My Taser was inside my purse. I couldn’t get to it. I cried out when the man slapped me again. The fight had almost been taken out of me. I was afraid. Afraid of what my mother’s husband would do to me if I allowed him to win this fight, to overpower me. So I had to keep fighting, even though I was scared. I had to keep swinging, kicking, punching. I had to keep him off of me.
I was so far gone that I didn’t see Demitri bypass the stairs. He jumped over the railing just as the man threw me face-first into the brick wall. The ragged bricks cut into the palms of my hands. I could hear myself crying, but it was as if I was outside myself as I balled up into a little corner.
Dread head turned and saw Demitri coming. He took a fighting stance, to no avail. Demitri slapped that man so hard, he went one way and his locs went another. The sound reminded me of the loudest gunshot. I’d never seen one man slap another so powerfully. If black could have been smacked from someone, surely Demitri had just done it.
The man with the locs fell to the ground. Demitri stood where he was, his defensive stance telling the man he was ready for a fight. Dread head jumped up from the ground.
“You just got the shit smacked out of you by a faggot, fam,” Demitri taunted.
Anger laced the man’s features. His nostrils flared. Chin high and legs planted wide, he threw a jab at Demitri that missed its mark. Demitri faked left. Gave a backward kick to the man’s ribs. Came back around with a one-two combo that sent the man down to the ground.
Sprawled on his back, the man grunted, twisted and turned. He was hurting. In pain. That kick to the ribs had injured him. Demitri walked over to him. Stomped him in his ribs. Kicked the man like he was a punter for the NFL. Demitri roughly snatched him off the ground. Turned him on his stomach, then stood over the dread head. With a hand full of his dreads, he made the man look at me.
“Apologize to her,” he demanded.
Demitri had hit the man only a few times, but his face was a bloody mess. Both lips split open like melons.
“Fu-fuck you, faggot,” the man said as squirts of mucus and blood flew from his lips.
Demi took the man’s face and pressed it into the ground. I knew when it went from defending me to making a point. He and Elliot had been insulted in that club, and they hadn’t been able do anything about it. Now that Demitri had won the battle, he was aiming to win the war while humiliating the man in the process. He snatched the man’s shirt off, then yanked at his pants until he had the man’s naked hairy ass showing. Shit wasn’t that hard to do, since he had been sagging, anyway. Not only did Demitri want to win the fight, but he also wanted to insult the dread head’s manhood.
“I’m fucking you . . . up, my dude. Who’s the faggot now, nigga?” he asked through gritted teeth, bringing his open palm around to smack the man in the face again. “Who’s the faggot, fuck boy?”
There was an intense, fevered stare in Demitri’s eyes. No matter how much the man tried to twist, turn, and get away, Demitri’s strength was overpowering. He was going to either kill the man or severely injure him. I came back to reality just as I saw the white girl rushing into the building. There was no doubt in my mind, she was going for backup.
I got up on shaky legs. I moved over to Demitri, who had the squirming man’s face on the ground.
“Come on, Demitri. Come on,” I said. “The . . . the white girl . . . she went . . . went back in.”
I was trying to tell him that I didn’t know who she was going to get. I knew there were other people in their crew, and I’d caused enough chaos for the night. He caught on. Grabbed my hand, and we ran down the side of the building. I was hurting. Face felt as if it was on fire, literally. My feet were slipping and sliding in my heels, making it awkward for me to run. While no cars could get in or out of the alley, we could on foot.
We stopped running once we made it to the street. Demitri pulled out his cell, called Elliot. Told him to pull his truck around to the side street. He kept watch while we waited. When he wasn’t watching behind us, he cupped my face to check my injuries.
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