Storie faked gasped into the phone. “Boo, girl. I’m shocked that you’d think that. One, I had to break my own bed to teach him how to break my damn back. So B, That means I’ve got to get it while he’s still motivated. And third, what’s this rumor about some man candy stayin’ up in your house?”
“That’s what I was calling to tell . . . Wait, break your bed? How’d you break your bed?” I couldn’t keep the disbelief out of my voice.
“Yes; let me school you right quick. Loosen the lug nuts on the bed frame. Start gettin’ in and when the bed collapses into shrapnel you blame Bae. Bae feels guilty and buys you a new bed frame. Now every chance you get, remind Bae about that time he broke the bed frame. Ta-da, Bae will work extra, extra hard trying to break the new one.”
I laughed so loud I had to set the phone down.
Leslie interrupted my conversation. “Deacon said you should be praying and meditating for Sister Bealiah.” She paused giving me a wary stare. “He was holding The Ruler.”
I twisted my mouth up at her. Dontay was still out somewhere with his friends so it was best if I didn’t press my luck.
“Girl, I’ll call you later. I’ve got to go help Leslie with her homework.”
I lied to Storie about most of the things that went on in our house. If a person wasn’t part of our household they didn’t need to know what went on within it.
“Ugh. Whatever with you and all that blasé blah. Come to my party. I miss my bestie and need to see her face to make sure I’m not talking to an imposter,” Storie whined.
She sounded pitiful enough that I actually agreed. Plus I really did want to talk about Que and all his craziness.
I dragged myself up white cobblestone steps of a porch big enough to park my car on. Leaning against one of the support columns I closed my eyes and sighed. It was too hot for all this mess. Storie’s party better be all that she’d said it would be. I needed something to keep my mind off Que’s hundred and whatever phone calls and texts. I was deleting them at first but then he’d just call and call, so now they sat in my voicemail box keeping it too full to receive any more messages. His class had become a no-fly zone; not only did I not bother with going to take the final but I dared him to fail me.
“Lick” by Joi and Sleepy Brown thumped through the wall in front of me. That song made me only imagine the kinds of nasty and wrong that was going on behind that door. The two-story house was the last one on the cul-de-sac surrounded by trees the size of skyscrapers. The hard plastic of my bright gold Mardi Gras mask was making my face hot but I wasn’t about to remove it. That and the long fire-burst red wig I picked out would hopefully keep me from being recognized.
Why do I let myself get talked into stuff like this? Know good and well I should be in church or at home.
Changing in the car was harder than I thought it would be so I took a minute to do a last-minute check on the drape of the black sheet I’d fashioned into an above-the-knee toga. I’d left the house in jeans and an oversize sweater to keep everyone from being suspicious.
“Who the hell is that lookin’ like a chocolate Greek Goddess? Eva, is that you?”
My friend Laurence could go under witness protection and you’d still know it was her. I’d been so lost in my head I didn’t even hear her walk up with her boo. She was unmistakable in her loose-fitted black toga with a short gold wreath on her low-cut fade. Why she even bothered with her little solid black mask was beyond me. Laurence could bench more than half the dudes I knew and she ran eight miles a day. Laurence was cut with these magazine-worthy abs that she showed off as often as possible. She made straight girls self-conscious about being able to pinch a little extra. How she managed to drape her toga so low you could see the cut of her abs dipping into her hips on the side was beyond me.
I tried to hide my nervousness behind a shaky smile. “Yeah, it’s me; how in the world could you tell?” I asked.
“First off everybody’s already here and second we saw some of your little peep show before you got out of your crooked-as-hell Jesus freak mobile over there. I told you them custom plates get you recognized. You are ‘Blssd2B’ caught out there, woman,” Laurence joked.
I popped my tongue at her. “Whatever. Ring the doorbell; this wig is making me hot. And um FYI, you know sports bras and Air Max ain’t proper toga attire right?”
Her girlfriend Charmaine jumped in the convo. She was posted up close enough to be Laurence’s Siamese twin.
“Girl, I tried telling her that; you know she don’t listen worth a damn. But she still look good so fuck it.”
She had a weird half smile on the part of her pinched face that I could see from under her mask. Charmaine had always been a little too clingy for my liking but if Laurence wanted a warden who was I to argue about it.
Laurence sucked her teeth looking back and forth between the two of us. She was about to say something smart but the door was flung open. Apple coconut–scented fog wafted into the hallway. Storie made me go to five different party stores just to find the stuff to make the smoke machine fog smell pretty. At least it worked; it’d have been tragic if the place smelled like a haunted weed house all night.
“Everybody been in here for a minute and I already know that’s you, Laurence; you can’t masquerade worth shit. I should make you take them shoes off before you come in my uncle’s spot. I’ll leave you be, this time. Hi, Charmaine. And, is that Eva?” Storie let out an exaggerated gasp. “Wait, Doctor, does this mean what I think it means? I’m no longer contagious with the bubonic plague or whatever it was that had my best friend avoiding me?”
She definitely knew how to make a person feel guilty for just needing a little space.
I smiled big and bright. “And here I am making it up to you even though I said I’d never come to one of your freak parties. I just had a lot of stuff going on in my head. I’m sorry.”
“Oh well, let momma see if you actually came or if you’re just here.”
Storie sashayed out onto the porch with a plume of smoke from inside billowing behind her like a ghost. Before I knew what she was up to, her hand was up under my toga. I jumped back in shock smacking her arm.
“Really, girl, what the hell? I thought I’d at least make it inside before I started getting felt up.”
“Oooh, Eva, and you shaved. Good girl,” Storie replied with a content nod and a wink.
Charmaine and Laurence gave each other the look, and I rolled my eyes at them all. It was a costume no-panties party and they weren’t about to joke me for the rest of my life for wearing some.
“Just because I didn’t wear my panties doesn’t mean I have to do something, damn.”
Storie held up her hand. “Eva, I’m the last person you have to justify yourself to. I don’t judge remember?”
“Nope, me neither,” Laurence added.
I waved them both off motioning for Storie to lead me inside. She paused long enough to hold out her hand showing us folded slips of paper.
“Take one and don’t look. Everyone inside pulled out of a bowl before you got here and the last one is mine. It’s about to go down. I want me a random Bearless fizuck.”
We’d all concluded that Storie’s momma was a little eccentric; that’s why she actually named her after the stories, or the soaps. She couldn’t pick one character so she just went all out. What she ended up with was an all-out daughter. It was a tradition Storie started back in high school. At the start of summer, my bestie would throw her no-panties party when her even more eccentric uncle went out of town.
It was mostly for single people but couples with no boundaries and cheaters and everything in between would be there. Storie personally made the invitation list herself. She just had to approve of everyone’s guest. Everybody showed up in whatever theme she came up with and the rest was never talked about. Last year it was bathrobes, and the year before that hospital gowns, this year she wanted black togas which in black folk language was basically a black sheet. Nobody wore panties or drawe
rs and from the things I’d heard, just about anything went.
“Well, y’all are the last of my guests, so, let’s get this shit going,” Storie called out, clapping her hands together and leading the way.
Laurence unceremoniously pushed me forward and I stumbled into the dark sour and fog-clouded main entrance. It was the first time I’d ever seen her uncle’s place and since I’d never met the man eccentric definitely fit. Storie locked the door and I could see an army of at least thirty people in togas mingling throughout the first floor. Storie led us through a wide-open seating area. Bright gold and purple throw rugs and walls lined with oversized cushions. The walls were painted deep purple and every now and again the candles would flicker showing off tiny gold flecks in the paint. It was her uncle’s private hookah lounge.
We stepped into the living room and my jaw hit the floor. I was transported to a penthouse loft on the highest floor in New York. Every wall was wallpapered from floor to ceiling with a mural overlooking the city at sunset. The real country appeal of his VA view was blotted away, hidden behind thick silvery velvet drapes. I could see a glass-encased fireplace glowing with a soft blue and green flame toward back of the living room.
Storie positioned herself in front of a flat-screen television that looked like it was just floating in midair and I don’t mean on a stand or mounted to the wall. It must have been on invisible wires or something. The guys she’d gathered for her party came in every shape and size of appealing and I visually crotch raped them to my heart’s content. Ever since Que’s pocket-size short self pulled out his thick and long panty dropper I couldn’t keep my eyes from dropping. Some of their togas didn’t leave a lot to figure out unless they were growers.
Storie made a hand motion and the music automatically lowered itself. A guy no taller than me brought her a box setting it down on the Star Trek–looking coffee table with its pretty blue crystal in the middle.
Storie addressed the room: “All right, we are about to play a new game. I call it Indulgence. Take out your slips of paper. Unfold that shit.”
I did as she directed, reading what looked like some kind of perverted fortune cookie.
ANDI’MGONNAKISSYOU,SUCKYOU,TASTEYOU,RIDEYOU,FEEL YOU DEEP INSIDE ME OOH
“You have a piece of a song,” Storie stated. “Someone else has another part. Walk around and sing until you find your match.”
Everyone jumped into action singing parts of songs I’d never known existed. I’d just finished shaking my head at this one girl singing to me about put it in her mouth when I bumped into Laurence.
I poked her in the side showing her my lyrics. “Girl, what song is this?” Without the music the words meant nothing if it wasn’t one of the songs I’d heard on Que’s playlist.
“That’s Janet, ‘Would You Mind.’ Damn you got a good one. I got Adina Howard.”
After a quick rundown on how my song was supposed to go, I didn’t feel so out of place anymore. I was about to tell Storie her game was janky when someone made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
“‘I just wanna touch you, tease you, lick you, please you. Love you, hold you, make love to you,’” he sang from behind me.
What am I supposed to do again? Sing back? I couldn’t make a sound. Without turning around I held up my slip of paper so he could see we had the same song. Before I had a chance to recover from that sensual serenade handcuffs were slapped around my left wrist and his right. I stared at Storie in shocked horror as she went around the room with that box, handcuffing everyone to their song partner.
“Now, for the indulgence part of the night.” She giggled and continued, “There are three ways to get out of your cuffs. You can drink twenty shots of jungle juice.” She pointed toward the black granite counter tops in the kitchen. Two huge Gatorade coolers like the ones the football team used during games were waiting. Little paper Dixie cups were filled on the table beside them. Everyone started whispering back and forth trying to figure out what the hell jungle juice even was and which partner would drink the shots.
Storie clapped her hands together, jerking the taller girl’s arm she’d managed to get cuffed to. “The second way to get free is to make out with your cuff buddy or help your cuff buddy make out with someone else. Otherwise you’re stuck and yes, you will be using the bathroom together and you can’t leave until you get un-cuffed so . . .”
We all rushed the jungle juice at the same time. I silently toasted my cuff buddy in his movie-like full Batman mask and we did shot number one. Storie must have mixed straight Everclear with watered down mango-peach juice. It burned all the way down and made options two and three seem less formidable compared to a second and third shot let alone twenty. Bottled water was purposefully removed from the stainless steel fridge and replaced with beers, Mike’s Hard Lemonade, and liquor. The ice trays, filled with strawberries in rum, Jell-O shots, and fruit soaked in liquor, were strategically placed throughout the kitchen beside liquor-infused cans of whipped cream.
The entire concept of the party was pretty obvious; it wasn’t meant for anyone to make it to twenty shots. We managed to fight down two more shots of jungle juice and three Jell-O shots that were surprisingly hella stronger than the jungle juice but a lot easier to get down. I needed to sit down because the room was spinning and he needed to pee. We compromised and I sat on the edge of the counter closest to the toilet. I closed my eyes for what felt like the briefest second. My arm moved just enough to snap me out of my tipsy power nap and when I looked up good old toga-clad Batman was standing in front of me stroking his bat cane.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked scooting myself as far back as I could with the limitation of my cuffed wrist.
He responded by biting his lower lip, sliding his hand faster up and over, again and again. It was more exciting than scary. I focused on the dimple in his chin and told my eyes not to go any lower, but since when did they ever listen? My lips dried and I couldn’t close my mouth to wet them because all the wetness in me had decided to just pour itself from in between my legs. Why was it so hard to just be good, do right, and have as little sinful sex as possible?
Maybe I need to get some stuff out of my system and then things will go back to normal. No strings, no problems, nothing. I nodded at my masked crusader and he took a step forward standing directly in between my thighs. I scooted to the edge of the counter until I could feel the heat from his skin just inches away. Before I could think about it anymore or feel guilty, I imagined Que doing this very thing with his wife and I surprised Batman and myself. Pushing off the counter, I took the seat he’d been so proudly showing off.
He groaned. I hissed through my teeth. Batman felt thicker and longer than Que, and he hurt so good I was gasping. He gripped my ass roughly guiding me up and down his bat stick. I was on the best standing rodeo ride of my life, hanging on with my one free arm around his thick neck. We could hear voices getting closer to the bathroom door and my heart started hammering away between my thighs. The excitement of getting caught combined with his perfectly deep strokes was all I needed. The first wave came crashing in. It was one of those beach-destroying waves. The kind that takes the old sand makes new islands, making me say things like:
“Oh Willoughby shit,” I panted.
It felt like he was trying to push me up but I’d locked my thighs around his waist slamming down against him.
My simple behind was coming and by the time I realized we didn’t use a condom I could feel him throbbing and painting my insides with white gold. Shock and panic made me lift myself up off his johnson in a rush. My bracelet caught the back of his mask. I pulled away taking it over his head. My own mask had gotten knocked crooked as I was unceremoniously dumped onto the floor. I sat there with my legs still shaking from post-climatic tremors staring up in shock at Dontay.
Chapter 9
Eva Batman Begins
Shocked I tried to recover squeezing my eyes shut as if it would help me un-see and un-feel every bit of Dontay
that I’d just experienced. If I’d been paying attention I’d have noticed he was the only person in the room with a mask that hid his eyes.
Feeling foolish I glared at him. I picked myself up off the floor snatching some toilet paper off the roll to catch the wet heat running down my thigh.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Eva?”
“What am I doing here? You can’t question me. I was invited. What the hell are you doing trolling my homegirl’s party?” I snapped back at him.
His nostrils flared. “I’m not the deacon’s daughter. Bear is my nigga; he invited me. I just came to window shop.”
“Then what the hell was all that?” I slashed my hands through the air referring to what we’d just done.
“What was what? Us fuckin’ just now? That was me having some kinky voyeuristic fun in front of a complete stranger so I wouldn’t have any slip-ups out there. I didn’t know it was you, and I sure as hell ain’t know you’d just hop on. Wait, you thought I was this Willoughby nigga?”
My eyes widened in horror. What did I just do?
Dontay reached down between our wrists, his fingers grazed my skin, and I felt myself blush. He pressed along the inside of his cuff and they fell off like magic.
“No, I didn’t think you were someone else.” I just wished it. “I meant um, Willoughby spit, it’s a beach that a hurricane pretty much spit in the middle of, never mind.”
“I’ll give you some time to get cleaned up.” He winked and grinned down at me. “You do got some good pussy though.”
A wicked chill ran down my spine as he eased through the door. My mouth dropped open and snapped shut. I was at a complete loss for words. Leaning on the sink I stared at myself in the mirror trying to process what’d just happened. I twisted the knob, splashing cold water on my cheeks. I needed to find something to clean myself off and out. Que’d had a vasectomy so babies and birth control weren’t even on my radar with him. Dontay tapped lightly on the door. Hopefully he found me a washcloth, some paper towels, hell some spermicidal cream.
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