400 Days of Oppression (14 page)

“Yes, ma’am.”

As commanded, I removed my dress and then my bra and underwear. I stood in front of the kitchen table with my arms at my sides, feeling self-conscious and slightly ridiculous.

“You are a sexy bitch, ain’t you? I’ll give that nigga credit. He does know how to pick ’em. You think you look as good as me, bitch?” Angela said, wiping her mouth with a napkin after swallowing another fork full of eggs, then rising and letting her robe slip to the floor.

“No, ma’am.”

“Look at me, bitch! You think I’m sexy?”

I let my eyes rove over her nude form, her muscular arms and shoulders, flat stomach with sculpted abs, small perky breasts, muscular thighs, tight little ass.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Yes, ma’am, what?”

“Yes, ma’am. I think you’re sexy.”

“You want to lick this pussy again?” she said, running her fingers up her thighs and then between them, winding her hips like she was dancing to a slow reggae rhythm. She was one fine piece of ass. It did make me wonder again what Kenyatta saw in me when he could have been fucking Angela every night. Even if she was a closet lesbian. Then I wondered if he was fucking her every night. I wanted to ask her but feared her response.

“Say it! Say you want to lick this pussy.”

I had no choice. As long as I was part of this experiment, she was in control. Disobeying her would mean losing Kenyatta. I wondered if Kenyatta even knew the things Angela was making me do.

“I want to lick your pussy,” I said in a monotone voice, staring at a spot just over Angela’s shoulder, avoiding eye contact. She didn’t seem to care. A complicit, enthusiastic partner wasn’t what she was after. She wanted to humiliate and debase me. My eager consent would have ruined the thrill.

“Get on your knees, white bitch,” she said with a smile.

I knelt on the floor in front of Angela, and she walked over and placed one leg on the table, opening her thighs and giving me an unobstructed view of her neatly shaven vagina. She grabbed me by the back of the head and thrust my face into her sex. Wanting it to be over as soon as possible, I sucked and licked at her clitoris, aggressively, driving her toward orgasm at a hundred miles an hour.

“Slow down!” she said, but I could already feel the trembling in her legs, see her stomach tighten, hear her breath quicken and deepen, taste the juices flowing from her labia. She was close. I flicked my tongue across her clit rapidly, battering it like a speed bag until I felt her nails dig into my scalp and a moan catch in her throat, low and sultry before becoming a scream of purest ecstasy. As long as I could do this to her, I owned this bitch, more than she could ever own me.

She collapsed against the kitchen table, spilling her coffee and almost knocking her plate onto the floor. I quickly rose, snatched up a rag, and began cleaning up the mess. I could feel Angela’s eyes on me.

“You hate me don’t you?”

I didn’t reply. I finished wiping up her coffee and removed her plate, rinsing it off in the sink and placing it in the dishwasher. I could still feel Angela’s eyes drilling into me. I poured her another cup of coffee and handed it to her. Her eyes narrowed, nostrils flared, and a scowl snarled her lips. Angela shook her head as she took the coffee from me. She took a sip then regarded me with the most curious expression. Clearly, I was some sort of enigma to her and her inability to pigeonhole me frustrated her.

“I’m not the one you should be hating,” she said. “You think Kenyatta doesn’t know about all of this? You think he didn’t know exactly what he was doing when he brought me in here? You are a stupid bitch. You’ll see. You’ll see.”

She closed her robe and walked out of the room.

I spent the rest of the day doing exactly as Angela had commanded. I scrubbed the floors, did the laundry, wiped down the walls, dusted all the appliances and light fixtures, cleaned the toilets and tubs, then made her lunch: ham and cheese on rye, and a spinach salad with sliced apples, cranberries, red onions, blue cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette. I served her in the dining room, so I would be far away from her while she ate. I wanted to avoid a repeat of this morning.

In the kitchen, I made my own salad and ate quickly, making sure I was done before Angela was, so I could clear her dishes. She glared at me as I whisked in and out of the room. Occasionally, she treated me to more of her insights into my relationship with Kenyatta.

“You must enjoy being used like a piece of trash. I’m telling you, Kenyatta’s going to wipe his ass with you and toss you aside. He ain’t never marrying you, girl. You’d be better off sticking with them white boys. You know niggas ain’t shit. The only reason a guy like Kenyatta is interested in you is because he can do whatever he wants to you and you’ll put up with it. He knows he can’t treat no sister like this.”

It took great effort to hold my tongue. Obviously, the fact that if he was using me then he was using her too, had not yet occurred to her. He had brought her into this house to help prepare her successor, to spend every day with the woman he was fucking, the woman he was fucking even while Angela was right there in the house. It had to hurt. I could see her pain every time she tried to convince me to leave, every time she tried to break me, even while she was punishing me or using me for sex. The fact that Kenyatta had chosen another woman, a white woman, was an open sore on Angela’s heart.

I was in the kitchen, cooking dinner, when Kenyatta came home. Immediately, I could tell that something was wrong. He smiled at me as he rushed past me, pulled a beer from the refrigerator, then took it with him to the bedroom. I wanted so bad to ask him what was troubling him. Normally, I would have, but I didn’t dare with Angela there.

There was a baked chicken in the oven and mashed potatoes and corn on the cob on the stove. I worried for a moment that it would go to waste. Regardless of my worries, I continued preparing the meal. I set the dining room table, folded the napkins and laid out the silverware and plates. I stopped short of lighting a candle. There was no way I was going to prepare a romantic dinner for my man and his ex-wife.

It felt weird to think of Kenyatta as “my man,” but I felt more connected to him since the experiment began than I had at any other time in our relationship. I wasn’t sure what that meant for our relationship. For weeks now, he had been my Master. It was already getting hard to remember when I wasn’t his property, when I wasn’t a slave. I wondered how successful we would be at resuming our normal roles when the time came. If the time came. 

Kenyatta came back downstairs wearing a robe and black and white checkered pajama pants. He sat down at the table and stared straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with both Angela and I. He barely seemed to notice we were in the same room. Angela sat down at the table across from Kenyatta, but didn’t attempt to speak to him. She fidgeted nervously in her chair, rearranging the silverware and trying to catch Kenyatta’s eye. Whatever he was thinking, Angela didn’t know any more about it than I did, and it was clear that she couldn’t handle being in the dark.

He finished his meal, and I quickly cleared the table. When he looked at me, there was a sadness in his eyes that ratcheted up my anxiety to nerve-rattling levels. Was he about to tell me this was all a big mistake? That the experiment was over and he was going back to Angela? I wanted to ask him what he was thinking so badly it was killing me.

He turned to Angela with that baleful expression and told her to go upstairs.

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“So you can fuck this slave in our house?”

“MY house and I’ll do whatever the hell I want in my house. You’re a guest here. Now go upstairs!”

Chastened, and clearly frightened of him, Angela left the room, casting one last hateful glance my way that promised retribution. I had never seen Kenyatta so forceful with her before, had never imagined that she would have stood for such a thing. I guess I believed the stereotype about black women not taking shit from anyone. Seeing Kenyatta dismiss her so bluntly was revelatory. I knew Angela would make me suffer for it, but I was far more worried about whatever was plaguing Kenyatta’s thoughts.

“Come here, Kitten.”

It felt like ages had passed since he’d called me kitten. Not since the night of the slave auction. My heart melted at the words, but somehow, hearing such endearing words come from his mouth deepened my fear. Why was he being so nice to me unless he were trying to soften a blow? I only hoped the blow would be physical.

“Yes, Master?”

Kenyatta smiled.

“Be my kitten tonight.”

I knew what he meant. I stripped quickly, tossing my clothes aside and dropping down on all fours. I purred as I rubbed my face against his pant leg and curled up at his feet. He patted his thigh and I climbed up into his lap, nuzzling my face in his neck as I continued to purr. I lightly clawed his back through his shirt. Kenyatta ran his hand from the top of my head to the small of my back, petting me as he held me in his lap. His eyes remained fixed on some distant thought, gazing across the room at the bare wall.

He held me like that for nearly an hour, before patting me on my head and sending me back into the kitchen to finish cleaning. I crawled in on my hands and knees, knowing how much it usually turned him on to see me crawl naked across the floor. His eyes followed me and I could see the lust in them, but it was almost obscured by the anxiety still clouding his expression. Something was definitely wrong with him. He was still watching me as I began washing the dishes. I was still unclothed, and usually watching me do chores naked would have been irresistible to him, but not tonight. When I turned back to look at him, after placing the last dish in the dishwasher, he had already left the room. Still confused and deeply concerned, I gathered my clothes and walked back out to my shack.

C
HAPTER
VII

I was awakened by the morning sun beaming through the wooden slats of my shed. A sparkling white and yellow brilliance invaded my eyelids and my dreams, wrenching me from fantasies of domestic bliss back into my little backyard hell.

I had barely slept and felt exhausted. The previous night’s anxiety weighed on me. I could not stop thinking about Kenyatta, wondering what awful news was troubling him that would soon be troubling me. After quickly hosing myself off, I threw on my old rags and rushed into the kitchen to get breakfast ready.

Above me, I could hear Kenyatta and Angela arguing, but I couldn’t hear well enough to get what they were arguing about. I heard my name several times followed by exclamations like “Fuck that bitch!” and “Who cares where she goes!” That last one scared me most of all.
Who cares where she goes?
Where was I going? Was Kenyatta sending me away? Because of that bitch?

The argument ended, and I heard the shower turn on. I also heard the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. I wiped an unexpected tear from my eyes and tried to stop the trembling in my lips as I flipped pancakes and fried bacon. Angela sat down at the table with a smug expression on her face. At first I assumed it meant she had won the argument, then I noticed the pain in the creases of her smile, the jealous gleam in her eye, and I knew that, whatever she had wanted Kenyatta to do to me, she hadn’t gotten her way. There was so much naked hate in her expression that I couldn’t stand to look at her and kept my eyes averted.

Kenyatta came down next wearing a dark blue, pinstriped suit with a light blue shirt and a red tie. He looked like a politician. It almost made me laugh. Still, he looked damn good.

He kissed me on the cheek and playfully swatted my ass before sitting down at the table across from Angela. She was livid. I got the clear impression that she wanted to murder me in front of him, right there in the kitchen. I handed her a cup of coffee and braced for her to throw it in my face. A warning glare from Kenyatta was the only thing that saved me from a horrible scalding. But Kenyatta was leaving in a few minutes and once Angela and I were alone, I knew I was fucked.

Kenyatta kissed Angela on the cheek and said goodbye, then he did the same to me. He paused and brushed the hair from my eyes. I smiled and dropped my gaze to the floor. He placed a finger under my chin and lifted my head so I was looking him directly in the eyes. That familiar flutter returned in the pit of my stomach. He was so handsome.

“Hang in there, Kitten. I’ll be home soon.”

That same sadness was still in his eyes when they locked with mine. Whatever was bothering him had not yet been resolved. It was also clear that he was as worried about leaving me alone with Angela as I was.

“Take good care of your Mistress today,” Kenyatta said. “She got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

He kissed me on the forehead, then glared another warning at Angela before grabbing his briefcase and heading out the door. I stared at the closed door like it was the locked door of a tomb or a prison cell. The knots in my stomach twisted tighter when I heard Kenyatta’s car start and then pull out of the driveway.

“Come with me.”

Angela’s voice sent a cold chill through my bones. Whatever she wanted me to come see or do was bound to be painful and/or humiliating. Refusing her, however, was not an option. I followed her tight little ass up the stairs. When she passed the master bedroom, the guest bath, and the guest bedroom, I knew where she was taking me...the playroom. The dungeon.