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  Grabbing her by the wrist, I quickly yanked her inside.

  “Noah, what the hell?”

  I closed the door and secured the three new locks I’d had installed that morning.

  “Noah, you look like you’re on speed or something.” Crystal’s voice was filled with concern.

  “I ain’t on no goddamn speed—I’m scared!” I shrieked, and went to peek out the front window. “Did you see them, huh, did you?”

  “See who, Noah?” Crystal asked, moving up behind me. I swung around, raising the bat. “Don’t be walking up on me, Crystal,” I warned.

  Crystal just glared at me before reaching for my wooden weapon.

  I’d been holding on to that bat so tightly and for so long that it had become another appendage.

  “Let. It. Go!” Crystal said between her teeth, and, finally, I did.

  “You’ve got to calm down. You’re acting like a crazy person,” she said, setting the bat in the corner and then leading me to the sofa.

  “There are just a few kids out there playing innocently.”

  “Oh, they’re far from innocent!” I said before slumping down and allowing my head to fall dramatically back onto the cushy pillow.

  “I-I can’t stay here anymore. I have to move. I have to get out,” I cried.

  Crystal settled herself beside me, taking my hand in hers and giving it a comforting pat. “It’ll be okay, Noah.”

  I looked into her face, and her eyes seemed far away. Now, why did that immediately make me feel like the “okay” she was talking about didn’t have jack to do with me?

  Chevy

  i started up the street, mumbling to myself. When I reached the corner, I saw something that was quickly becoming extinct in New York City. A pay phone. I rushed to it, my pride nothing but vapors now. Snatching the receiver off the cradle, I decided that I would call Crystal and tell her my whole sordid story, but my fingers had their own idea, and the number I found myself dialing belonged to a man I dated some time back, named Carl.

  “Hey, this is Carl!” his effervescent voice answered. For a moment my words were locked in my throat. It took a minute for my mind to realize just who I’d called.

  “C-Carl?”

  “Yep, this is he. Who’s this?”

  I’d met Carl about a year ago as he was climbing into his late-model C-Class Mercedes and I was cutting out early from work. It was the car that caught my eye, not Carl, and when I turned to get a better look at the smooth curves of the machine, Carl was frozen, staring at me like I was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.

  “Hey,” I had ventured, already knowing that I would never spread my legs for him. He was short, wide, and balding. The bifocals he wore looked as if they were an inch thick, and his bottom lip was a plump pink piece of jutting meat.

  “M-me?” he said unbelievingly as he used his index finger to indicate himself.

  “You see anyone else around?”

  Carl looked slowly over his shoulder and then back at me. “No.”

  I had him from hello.

  In just under twenty minutes he revealed that he was the owner of the Sunshine Laundromat franchise.

  He had twenty locations throughout Queens and Brooklyn. He wasn’t married, had no children, and still lived at home with his mother in Hempstead, Long Island.

  I almost felt bad for what I was about to do to that brother.

  Three months and thousands of dollars in “loans” later, I cut it off.

  Why?

  Well, he started talking about marriage and children. Funny thing, though, he never pressured me for sex and I hadn’t given him more than a kiss on his chubby cheek.

  Although I did slip my hand down into his crotch from time to time—just to keep hope alive, if you know what I mean.

  When I told him it was over, he cried like a baby. Or should I say like a bitch.

  “Hey, Carl. It’s me—um…”

  “Chevy?”

  Oh, God—it’s been almost a year and this man still remembers my voice?

  “Yes, it’s Chevy.”

  “Oh my goodness. Chevy, Chevy…how are you?”

  It was Christmas all over again for Carl. From the sound of his voice, I had made his fucking year!

  “I’m—I’m, good. How about yourself?”

  “Good, good,” he squealed.

  I could imagine him pacing the floor, giddy with excitement, his swollen belly quivering with joy. Ugh!

  “I opened three more Laundromats,” he continued.

  “Oh, good for you…Listen, I need a favor.”

  “Anything!” His voice climbed another pitch.

  “I’m in a bit of a pickle, and I need someplace to crash…just for the night.”

  For a minute I thought my magic had worn off, because for a long time he didn’t say a word. But just when I was about to speak, his voice came back, calm and even.

  “Where are you? I’ll come and get you.”

  Crystal

  you’re such a good friend,” Kendrick had said after I hung up the phone with Noah. “A good woman,” he added, and squeezed me tightly.

  God, it felt good to be wrapped in his arms again. I breathed in his scent, twirled my fingers through the hairs on his chest—just plain ole relished in the moment!

  “Why, thank you!” I laughed before tilting my head up and planting a kiss on his soft lips.

  “Did I tell you how much I missed you?” Kendrick’s brown eyes burned into me.

  “A hundred times,” I said, and planted another kiss on his lips.

  “Did I tell you how much I love you?”

  I smiled. “Two hundred times.”

  “Is that all?” He laughed, squeezing me tighter. “Damn, I’m behind.”

  I grinned; it was like old times again. Maybe this was the start of a new beginning for us. I hoped so.

  We made love again. It wasn’t feverish like the first two times; it was slow, sensual, gentle. We took time with each other, nibbling, kissing, licking, sucking…

  When we were through, I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was remain in Kendrick’s arms, but I’d promised Noah, and so after a catnap, we finally pulled ourselves from the bed and headed into the shower.

  Geneva

  when I left Crystal and Noah, I was fuming. I couldn’t even wait until I got home to call Deeka and confront him. I knew that was his number on Crystal’s cell phone. I just couldn’t wait to hear the explanation he was going to give me, so I stopped at a pay phone and called him.

  When he answered, I let him have it.

  “Why the fuck are you calling Crystal?”

  “What? Geneva, is that you?”

  “Are you fucking her? Are you?”

  “Of course not—what’s wrong with you? Why would you say something like that?”

  “Liar, liar, liar!” I screamed, and began banging the receiver against the black and silver box.

  Who knew how long I’d been standing there screaming and banging the phone, but when I finally came to my senses, all that was left of the receiver was a few bits of plastic and wire.

  I turned around and saw that a crowd had gathered behind me.

  Off in the distance, I could see a beat cop walking steadily in my direction.

  I turned and hurried away.

  When I got home, there were more than twenty messages on the machine from Deeka. And while I sat, smoked, and stewed, I listened as he left fifteen more. He even came by, calling up to me from the sidewalk, but all I did was chuck his clothes at him from my window.

  I was done with him and that damn Crystal too!

  Chevy

  how Carl made it all the way to Eightieth Street and Columbus Avenue from Hempstead, in weekend travel traffic, in less than an hour, I didn’t know.

  He was driving a Range Rover now, dark blue with a beige interior, tinted windows. The truck came to a screeching halt in front of me.

  When Carl opened the door, he was grinning. I tried my best to
offer him a pleasant smile, but I saw that his stomach had increased in size over the past year and the shirt he wore was barely covering the swell, exposing the yellow stretch marks embedded in his skin.

  I swallowed back the bile rising in my throat and told myself that this was no time to be particular.

  “Hey, Carl, thanks so much,” I said, ducking the hug he’d jumped out to give me and running to the passenger side of the truck and jumping in.

  Carl took his seat again, pulled the door shut, and glanced into the rearview mirror and then down at his two-sizes-too-small Polo shirt.

  He tugged self-consciously at the ragged bottom and then announced in a quiet voice, “I was doing some housework when you called.”

  “That’s okay, sweetheart,” I said, reaching over and touching his knee. “I’m just glad to see you.”

  It took forever to get to Hempstead, and Carl had rambled on nonstop during the hour-and-a-half drive. I felt trapped in that Range Rover and wondered why this time he hadn’t taken the same route that he’d streaked through to get to me.

  “Do you want me to stop to pick up something to eat?” Carl asked, turning to me. He hadn’t really looked at me the entire time we’d been in the vehicle, and when he finally did, his eyes didn’t fall on my face, but lingered on my breasts for a while before moving down to my thighs and then up to my crotch.

  I folded my hands over my lap.

  “Sure,” I said, and turned my gaze back to the road.

  His mother was away in Florida; he’d bought her a condo in Miami.

  “She spends most of her time there now,” he said as he struggled to maneuver the key into the lock while holding the three bags of food from Kentucky Fried Chicken.

  I’d never been to Carl’s house. We always met at the high-end restaurants I chose from the Zagat’s restaurant guide. And I sure as shit never let him know where I lived. I knew early on that Carl had stalker potential.

  The house was dark and smelled musty.

  “Turn on some lights,” I said as I followed him through the living room and into the dining room.

  The dining room table, a bleached white wood, was littered with newspapers and what looked like months and months of mail.

  “Sorry,” Carl announced, embarrassed. “I don’t get a lot of visitors,” he said as he swept the pile of papers to one side and set down the bags of food.

  The dining room led directly into the dated kitchen. I took in the Formica counters and dark wood cabinets. There were dishes in the sink and the floor looked grimy and sticky.

  “So, what, the maid quit?” I half joked.

  Carl pushed his fists into his fat hips and laughed. “Yeah, something like that.”

  He hadn’t bought anything to drink, so when I asked what he had around to wash these drumsticks and biscuits down with, he disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a tall glass of cherry Kool-Aid.

  I hadn’t had Kool-Aid since I was ten years old! I guess some folks still believed that Kool-Aid was something other than water, sugar, and coloring. What the hell, I thought, and before I knew it, I’d chugged down two glasses of the stuff.

  “So what happened to you? Did you get evicted or something?”

  I guess the question was bound to come up. I wiped the grease from my lips and licked at the red sugary corners of my mouth before leaning back in my chair and folding my arms across my chest. “Something like that,” I said.

  Carl’s face was blank for a minute, and then a small smile began to spread across it, and before long he was laughing, openmouthed and uproariously.

  I smiled stiffly; I could clearly see that Carl had five teeth missing.

  After we ate, he showed me to the guest bedroom; the walls were paneled with dark wood. A twin bed sat in the middle of the room atop a bland orange shag carpet.

  I am allergic to cheap—and even more allergic to outdated—always have been, and now I resisted the urge to scratch the itch that had suddenly crawled beneath my skin.

  I had to remind myself again that this was no time to turn my nose up at anything less than five star. But it was hard, ’cause this shit was just a step up from the roach motel I’d spent two hours in last night.

  “The bathroom is down the hall to your left,” he said, handing me a pale yellow towel and matching washcloth.

  “Thank you.”

  We stood there for a while. He didn’t seem to know that I wasn’t about to undress in front of him. “Was there something else?” I asked.

  He was staring at the plastic bag I’d been carrying my belongings in.

  “Do you need something, um, washed?” he asked, his eyes never leaving the bag. He licked his lips. What was this lip licking thing? I assumed he’d been watching too many LL Cool J music videos.

  My eyes moved to the bag and then back to him. “No—well, yes, but I’ll handle that after I take a shower.”

  “I can do it for you if you like.”

  Was that perspiration dripping down the side of Carl’s face? Did dirty laundry turn him on? Maybe that’s why he was in the Laundromat business!

  Sick fuck.

  “Thank you, but no thank you,” I said sternly, and with that he turned and walked out.

  After I showered, I rummaged through the medicine chest in search of some deodorant and lotion, but all I could find was an old jar of Tussie and some Vaseline. Damn, I felt like I was back in the seventies.

  The towel wrapped tightly around me, I fell into the twin-size bed and promptly dropped off to sleep.

  I don’t know how long I’d been out when I was stirred by the sound of heavy breathing. I slowly opened my eyes and found that my towel had fallen open, exposing my nakedness.

  Still groggy, I peered through the darkness and my eyes lit on Carl, who was standing over me, butt naked, stroking his dick!

  “What the fuck are you doing!” I screeched, sitting up and grabbing at the bedspread. “Get out!”

  Carl was in another world; his eyes were blank and teary. “Carl!” I screamed again as I tried to cover my nude body.

  Carl chuckled seductively with each stroke, and I felt my stomach turn over.

  “Carl?”

  “All that time, all that money, all that love I wasted on you. I was just a play toy for you, wasn’t I, Chevy?”

  He still wasn’t looking at me; he spoke into the darkness.

  My heart began to gallop. I had to think fast.

  “No, baby—you got me all wrong. You weren’t my play toy. I really cared for you. It’s just that—”

  “Shut up!” he bellowed, and finally his gaze fell on me. “I am going to fuck you, do you understand me? I am going to fuck you because you owe me at least that,” he said calmly as he let go of his dick and took a step toward me.

  I looked wildly around for something to protect myself with, but there was nothing. Fear gripped me, but disgust still had the stronger hold. I peered down between Carl’s legs and saw the knob of a penis gazing back at me.

  Fuck!

  “Look, look, we don’t have to—” I started, but then quickly changed direction. “I have herpes!” I said, finally catching hold of the spread and pulling it over me.

  “That’s okay,” Carl said wickedly. “I have condoms.”

  I was doomed, doomed!

  “Lie back,” he murmured as he unfolded his hand. In his palm he held a small square of plastic. The letters glowed green: GLOW-IN-THE-DARK PLEASURE, it read.

  I was terrified, but I knew that my slight 130 pounds wouldn’t even put a dent in Carl’s 200-plus frame, so I did as I was told.

  “You’re going to enjoy this, bitch.” He sneered.

  I closed my eyes and prayed.

  He ate me out first.

  It was a painful experience, painful and loud. He chomped away like my twat was a piece of overcooked beef. He lapped at it, sucked, and gnawed until I thought I would pass out from the pain. When I couldn’t take any more, I yelled down to him, “Hey, man, I’m a woman, no
t chicken bone. You won’t find any gristle there!”

  What came next, I’m embarrassed to say.

  He climbed on top of me and shoved that knob of a dick into me, which wasn’t far-reaching at all, but I wanted it over and done with, so I behaved like he’d just stuck twelve inches into me.

  “Oh, Daddy, you’re so big!” I moaned.

  “I know, I know.” He labored heavily as he banged into me like a jackhammer. My head had been too close to the headboard to begin with, and after three of Carl’s massive thrusts, it was smashed against it. Five thrusts in and the top of my skull was sore. By thrust number ten, I had a migraine coming on.

  “Shit, I’m coming, Daddy, I’m coming!” I squealed and found his nipples (which were bigger than mine), giving them a hard twist.

  “Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip…yip…yip…yip…” he bellowed like a hyena.

  If not for the fear, I would have burst into laughter.

  He shuddered, slobbered something masquerading as a kiss on my mouth, and then collapsed on top of me.

  “I-I can’t breathe,” I managed just as Carl began to snore.

  Crystal

  i spent the night over at Noah’s, but the entire time my mind was on Kendrick. I felt like a giddy schoolgirl, my stomach swimming with butterflies. I tossed and turned all night, which would have normally irritated Noah, but he was too wired to sleep and so was pacing in front of the three windows along the wall of his bedroom.

  “You see, see!” he kept saying whenever something new began to occur outside the house. “Crystal, they’re chirping!”

  “What?”

  “Chirping,” he emphasized, and then held his hand to his mouth as if he held a walkie-talkie. “Chirping!” he repeated.

  “What’s that, Noah?” I asked sleepily. We’d argued about me sleeping in his bed. I wanted to sleep in the extra room, Chevy’s old room, but he wouldn’t have it.

  “Chirping, with those Boost mobile phones,” he explained while his thumb jerked back and forth, pressing an imaginary lever.