by Tiya Rayne
“Yes, Luke.” I moaned. “I need you. Make me forget, Luke. Make me feel better.” My pleaded words open the flow of tears that fell down my cheeks as I paid attention to the feel of my man between my thighs, his hands grasping my hips as he rocked me on his cock. Even the smell of him worked magic to clear my mind of earlier. I later came to find that that moment with Luke would only offer me temporary relief, but at the time it was needed.
“That’s it, Darlin’, use my body. Take my strength from me. Whatever you need you can have, Zo. I’ll give you all of me.” His heartfelt words were whispered against my sweat soaked skin as our bodies continued to rock in rhythm. His hands moved from my waist to cup my heavy breasts. A gentle squeeze of my nipples had me crying out.
“I love you. I love you.” I chanted over an over until I seized up with a powerful climax. When I was done, I toppled over on top of Luke and he continued to ram up into me from below until he too, cried out from his release. Afterwards he held me close, covered in sweat, as I cried all night long.
The memory finally sets me free and I’m once again back in my childhood home with Tyrik Smith. Not even the beautiful memory of me and Luke that night can change the hatred I feel for this smug bastard sitting in my parents’ house.
“Zora, sweetheart, don’t be rude.” My mom says in the voice she uses when she’s angry around company. “Your godfather said hello.”
“Hey, Uncle Harold!”
Although no blood relation, Harold Johnson was as much as an uncle to me as my father’s real brothers. Harold and my father grew up together, they were as thick as thieves and were both tickled pink when they thought Tyrik and I would actually end up together. I also knew that I wasn’t in the mood nor mindset to see Uncle Harold, his wife Lizabeth, and definitely not his nephew, Tyrik.
The last time I saw Harold, he called me a whore and a disgrace during dinner. I had to sit silently in my seat, tears in my eyes, as neither my mother nor father said anything to him.
“If you don’t mind, I’m going to head up stairs.” I announce ready to make my exit.
“Zora, they came over to visit your father and see you. Sit down, sweet heart.”
“Mom, today is not a good day.” Langston comes to my defense.
During my entire exchange with my mother, I could feel Tyrik’s eyes on me. They felt like lasers running over my skin as he took in my curves all the way up to my wild curls. When I turn to look at him his mouth is hanging wide open like he’s in shock. When he realizes I’m looking at him, his lips curl up in a devilish smile and lust clouds his brown eyes. I get that queasy feeling in the pit of stomach that usually accompanies vomit.
My mother’s voice draws my attention away from Tyrik.
“Zora, just go get Peyton then.”
The hell I will.
I meant for those words to be said only in my head, but I’ve had too much shit going on today and they slip out on their own accord.
I hear my mom and Mrs. Johnson’s gasp.
“Zora Henderson! You will watch your mouth.” My father warns.
“Look, I’ve had a really shi….bad day, I think it’s best I go upstairs.”
Because I can promise you the word Hell will be the least of your problems in a few minutes if I have to stay amongst this rapist and his rude family another second.
“You’ve had a bad day?” Uncle Harold questions with a sneer. “Try being your father, he had a bad eight years.”
See, this is why I avoid reunions. People always find out the hard way that I’ve changed. I turn around to walk out the room, when his voice stops me.
“So, Luke’s getting married?”
I turn around to glare at Tyrik. His face is lit up with a shit eating grin.
“And to a white woman at that.” His Aunt scoffs. “I guess now you’ve learned your lesson, girlie. Those white devils only want one thing from you.”
I ignore Aunt Lizabeth. I don’t know why I ever took her serious anyway. Anyone that repeatedly wears bad wigs and neon lipstick cannot be taken serious.
I focus my attention on Tyrik. “You really want to bring up Luke’s name in front of me? You are the last person that should want to bring up my past.” Tyrik blanches. His smooth brown skin turns ashen.
“What are you talking about?” Langston asks.
The scowl on his face turning back from me to Tyrik. He knows something must have went down between the two of us. I stare in silence at Tyrik waiting to see if he would try me. I didn’t tell anyone about the attempted rape at the time because I was too afraid, but I wasn’t afraid now. I wasn’t so much concerned that someone would do anything about it, I would tell now just so I can see him squirm. I wanted him to know what it felt like to feel trapped, pinned down and violated.
“Zora?!?” My brother calls out to me when I don’t answer his first question. I finally tear my eyes away from Tyrik’s, not before I catch the way they narrow in warning.
“Forget about it.”
“Don’t try to change the subject.” Uncle Harold states. “All the trouble that you put your parents through for that boy. You should be ashamed. Was it worth it, Zora?”
Once again I try to remind myself of the manners my parents taught me. I turn to my parents, waiting for them to jump in. All this time they’ve spoke about change and wanting to work things out between us, yet now they are quiet. Again, they sit back and watch as another person gets to talk down to me and belittle me. Once again, my parents let me down. My father seems to be staring straight through me and mother is looking down at her hands folded in her lap.
“Are you going to let him talk to me like that?” I ask my father.
His sad brown eyes stare back at me.
“Harold, don’t.” He warns lamely.
I guess so.
“No, Charles! As Zora’s godfather, I’m going to say the things you can’t.” Harold turns back to me with his nose in the air. “All the trouble you put your parents through, your family, your friends. Even my nephew suffered at the hands of your relationship with that redneck. If it weren’t for Tyrik begging us not to press charges on that bastard, he would be in jail right now and not on a football field.”
“Fuck your nephew!” I shout. “He should have died that night, after what he did to me.”
“Zora, that’s enough. No need to start lying.” Tyrik shoots to his feet.
Langston’s eyes are on me, studying me.
“You are a disrespectful, girl!”
“Yeah, and your nephew’s a rapist.”
Lizabeth gasps and stands to her feet. “Don’t you dare say that about my sister’s son. You lying whore!”
“Oh, I’m lying? Why don’t you ask him how he had Clarissa call me to the park so his friends could pin me to the ground as he ripped my clothes off.” I could feel the hysterics rising in my voice.
I was on the verge of breaking down. It was probably helped by the fact that I just went through something similar not even 20 minutes ago.
“If it weren’t for Luke showing up and whooping his ass, he would have raped me that night in front of five people that either helped or stood on the sidelines and laughed at me.”
The room is quiet. The only sound heard is the motor in the ceiling fan over our head.
“Tyrik is this true?” My mother asks, finally taking interest in this conversation.
“Vanessa, of course it isn’t.” Lizabeth explains. “Clearly Zora is still trying to take up for that boy. Tyrik would never do anything like that.”
“Clearly you don’t know Tyrik.” I roll my eyes.
“Charles, are you going to sit there and let her accuse my nephew of such a heinous crime?” Harold asks my father.
I turn and catch my father’s eyes staring back at me. This time they aren’t so sad. They look more focused than I’ve seen them since I came home. He looked like my dad again. Not like the frail man that I’ve been avoiding like the plague.
“Tyrik, why didn’t you press
charges the night you said Luke attacked you.” Although my father is talking to Tyrik, he never takes his eyes off of me.
“I…..uh…..didn’t….. want to upset everyone. You know, with the towns past.”
I actually snort at his reply. It was so obvious he was lying. I think even Harold knew he was lying, but like true family he stuck by his nephew.
“See! I told you, Tyrik would never do what she is accusing him of. He wouldn’t have to take from a woman, he could get anyone he wanted.”
“Maybe we should ask, Clarissa? Or maybe Jamieson Thompson, Marquees Jackson, Tasha Scott or Karima Fraiser. They were all there.”
“Why don’t you shut…..” Tyrik never finished his statement.
My brother cut off his thoughts with one punch to the jaw.
The formal den was turned into a Love and Hip Hop set as Harold tried to hold my brother back from finishing his attack on Tyrik. Lizabeth had Tyrik’s face clutched to her bosom. At some point her hideous wig had taken a hit and was now sitting sideways.
“Langston, that’s enough!” My father demands.
His voice sounds out of breath. I forgot my father just had a heart attack and should not be getting this worked up. Langston must have remembered it too, because he steps away from Harold, turning his back to Tyrik and running his hands over his face.
“Do you see what you have done?!?” Harold yells at me. “You are a sickness to your family. All you do is bring destruction. You will never be more than a bed warming…..”
“Say it!” Langston growls in Harold’s face.
The old man takes a step back as he sees the fury in my brother’s eyes.
“I don’t care what title you hold in this family, you are still a guest in my parents’ house. You WILL NOT, disrespect my sister.”
“Charles are you going to allow this young man to talk to me like that?”
“NO.” My father’s voice sounds stronger as I turn to look at him. He’s standing up straight now, that fire back in his eyes. “Langston, son, stand down.” My father waits until Langston steps away from Harold. “Harold, you are my best friend. We’ve been friends for forty years. I love you like family and I fault myself for the liberties you have taken when addressing my daughter. You are always welcome at my house, but you will leave your judgement, comments, and your nephew outside my home.”
I watch silently as an angry Harold grabs his wife’s purse off the floor. He rounds up his family and storms out of our house. The room remains silent. Only sound is my mother’s crying. This all over again. It feels more like old times now.
“Were you ever going to tell us?” Langston’s question brings my head up to meet his eyes. The anger from earlier is back with a vengeance. “That shit earlier, and now this? Do you know how many times I’ve listened to that muthafucker talk about his nephew? I even asked about that….” Langston trails off, turning away from me.
He seemed as if he needed a few minutes to gather himself. I quietly gave him the time. I knew it was a lot to take in. Try living it. He turns back to me, my arms folded across my middle like a protective barrier.
“Why didn’t you tell us, Zora?” Langston’s question was laced with pain, but I was going to tell him the truth. No matter how hard it was for them to hear.
“Because you didn’t want to hear it.”
My mother’s cries grow louder as the first tear drops from Langston’s eyes. I turn away from him. My father quietly walks out of the room. He doesn’t even look at me as he leaves.
**********
It was after one in the morning when I finally got Peyton to calm down enough to go to sleep. She clung to me and Mr. Button most of the night like a baby chimpanzee. She hadn’t been that clingy since she was an infant. I didn’t mind, I needed her as much as she needed me. Langston was just as bad. He silently watched me all day, as if he was afraid I would disappear. I guess I can’t blame him, it isn’t like I hadn’t done it before. Hell, after the blow up at my parents’ house I thought about doing it again.
Now, as I lay in the guest bed at my brother’s house staring at the ceiling while my child and her teddy bear hogs the bed, I can only think of Luke. Our last conversation after the night of the fair plays back in my head.
Luke’s truck pulled back up to the old fairgrounds where we met earlier that day. He turned off the car and we both sat quietly for a moment.
“Zora..”
“Luke….”
We both spoke at the same time, then chuckled.
“You go first.” I said, I had a feeling he wouldn’t like what I was going to say.
Luke pulls his cap off and then runs the same hand through his hair before replacing his baseball cap.
“I know you’re thinking that we shouldn’t see each other again.”
“Luke, it’s obvious we can’t be friends.”
“Why?”
I scoff. Is he serious? “You’re engaged to be married.” I say, using my hands to talk.
“And that’s not going to change because we’re friends.”
“Friends? Luke we almost kissed tonight. In public, where anyone could have seen us. Hell, someone did see us.”
“Are you more worried about my fiancée finding out or your boyfriend?”
I wanted to tell him the truth right then. That there is no boyfriend. However, that may lead to more problems or questions that I couldn’t answer.
I take a deep breath and blow it out. I turn and stare out the window. “Luke, I can’t be friends with you because when I’m with you, I don’t think of friendly things.”
When I turn back to him his hazel eyes are so heated they could catch on fire.
“What do you think about?” His voice dropped so low it vibrated my body leaving my breasts and clit aching with need. I clenched my thighs together, Luke’s eyes follow the movement and his fat pink tongue dips out of his mouth to glide across his bottom lip.
Silence reigns in the car as the sexual tension builds up so much it starts to fog up the windows.
“We can’t go there, Luke.”
“Says who?”
God, his words and that low voice had me damn near moaning. I was one bad decision away from climbing across that seat and sucking his dick. That has always been part of my fantasy. I never got to do it when we were younger. I was too young and inexperienced. I can’t say I would be any good at it now because I’ve still never done it, but I’m old enough to get joy out of trying it.
For a moment I can’t remember why the hell I can’t have what I want. I mean, Luke was right when he said I didn’t care about his fiancée. I respected their relationship and would never force myself in Luke’s life, but I didn’t really care if she was hurt. I know that made me a bitch, no matter what way you looked at it, but Luke is mine. So why am I holding back? Then it hits me. The vision of my daughter pops in my mind. I can’t be with Luke, because he has no idea about Peyton. And it doesn’t matter how good of a man Luke is, finding out you have a child is not going to go down smoothly for him. That realization sobers me up. It wipes the lustful haze from my eyes.
“I have to go.” I climbed out of his truck.
Before I closed the door I looked back at a clenched jawed Luke. “Please don’t call me again. Don’t text me. I can’t…. have you, Luke.” I turned to shut the door.
“Zora.” Luke called my name and I turned back to him. He’s still staring out the windshield, both hands clenched tight around the steering wheel, his lips set in thin lines. “I’ll leave you alone.” He turned to me and my knees got weak at the look in his eyes. “But the next time our paths cross, I’m taking back what belongs to me.”
What the hell was I supposed to say to that?
I closed the truck door and headed to my car.
I tried to stay away from him ever since then. Tried to keep him out of my head, that warning helping me keep my distance. However, tonight, it was getting harder and harder to fight that urge to see him. I don’t think about it as
I climb out from under my daughter’s arm and leg. I don’t consider my actions as I pull on my dress from earlier today and stick my feet inside my cloth shoes. Doesn’t cross my mind when I grab my brother’s University hoodie off the coat rack by the front door and ease out of the house with my keys and purse in my hand. Nothing crosses my mind on my drive over to the hotel Luke is staying at or the ride up the elevator to the penthouse suites. As I knock on the door to his room, my mind is still as blank as it’s been since climbing out the bed.
When the door to the hotel room opens, and a shirtless Luke stands at the door with one arm propped up on the doorframe and the other holding the door open, my mind finally starts to function again. He doesn’t move or speak. He only looks down at me with dark hooded eyes. My silent mind starts to fill with thoughts. What if he turns me around? What if he has had time to think about this, and realizes I’m not worth the risk?
“You know what this means, right?” His deep voice sends shivers down my spine.
I nod.
“I need to hear the words, Darlin’.”
“Yes, Luke.” Again he doesn’t move. Just stares at me for another second, making me squirm under his scrutiny.
Finally, after what seems like a lifetime he moves aside and says. “Take your clothes off and get on the bed.” It’s a demand that has me moving like a puppet to his words.
I walk into the suite, only taking a second to admire the fancy room. The small foyer dips down to the large open kitchen and living space. Four large glass windows give a beautiful view to the night sky and the town lights below. To the right of the Sitting area is another door that I assume leads to the bedroom. I walk towards it dropping my purse and keys on the side table by the door. I pull Langston’s huge hoodie up over my head and deposit it on the floor at my feet. I head towards the massive king size poster bed in the center of the room. Its crumpled white sheets letting me know Luke must have been asleep before I came. I kick off my shoes and then lift the t-shirt dress over my head. I stand in the middle of the room, my back to the door in nothing but my panties. I know Luke is behind me, without even turning to see him. I can feel his eyes on me. I stop and think of what I must look like naked. My body wasn’t perfect. A few stretch marks line my hips and belly. They aren’t extremely noticeable unless you are close up on them. There is no longer a gap between my thighs like it was when I was in high school. I’m not ashamed of my body, because these are my battle scars. The scars of a woman that brought a child into this world. I wouldn’t trade them for nothing, but to someone else they may be unattractive.