Every Woman Needs a Wife (23 page)

She shook her head vigorously, whimpering, “No! Noooo! Noooooooooo!”

With that he smacked her buttocks hard. Pain shot through her like nothing she’d felt before. Even her mother had never hit her.

“Please don’t. I’ve never done this. That’s why I’m running. I don’t want to—”

“Well, them young niggers still waitin’ on you. They gon’ do worse, I promise ya. One man?” He shook his head, groaning. “Naw, this ain’t so bad.”

He placed his wrinkled old nasty penis to her vagina and pushed again.

She screamed.

“Shut up!” he growled, shaking her like a rag doll. “Or I’ll call ’em in here and let all of ’em have ya right here.”

Brandi sniffled, clamping down on her lips, trying to keep any sound from coming out. Pain like she never knew enveloped her.

“Gotta teach you little young gurls a lesson. Do as your elders tell ya.
See, I bet you supposed to be in school right now, ain’t ya? Didn’t listen to ya mama, now, did ya? Now Daddy gon’ teach you a good lil’ lesson.”

A sudden pain ripped through her insides like fire and ice fighting for the same space. He thrust forward—hard.

She let out a shrill scream.

He reached out and clamped his hands over her mouth as he pulled her back down on his lap—hard. Thrusting up like a galloping horse.

Pain became her entire world.

She struggled, trying to pull away—to get away from that tearing, searing pain. And they both landed on the floor. Her head hit the hardwood. But he kept galloping, gasping for breath as he seared her, hurting her, tearing into her. She hoped he would die.

He pulled her buttocks back to him, and thrust forward, moaning, “Good and tight, gurlie, good, good, good…” She reached for the floor lamp, missing as he pushed her forward, ripping her with every move. He spread her buttocks wide; she cried every time he slammed into her. Blood trickled down, spilling out on the floor, but he kept her within his strong grasp, moaning, “Gurlie feel good…gurlie feel so tight.”

“Gurlie” had lost the ability to cry or speak. She lost the will to live as something in her mind crumbled and the world became black. The man didn’t stop moving.

If she got out of this alive, she would never disobey her mother again. Not ever! If the pain would stop, she would do everything she was supposed to do.

The man pushed her away just as a stream of white stuff squirted into the air.

He fell back onto the floor. “Good gurlie. Good gurlie.” He grinned, slowly stroking his groin, struggling for breath. Then he looked down, noticing the blood on the floor, the blood on his penis, and said. “A virgin? Must be my lucky day! We might havta do dat just one mo time. That’s all, just one mo’ time…”

A
n hour later Tanya lay stretched out on the sofa, cordless resting on her chest, novel still in hand, television on. The Bachelor could have picked Godzilla for all she cared. The show raged on without one normally attentive viewer. She prayed that Vernon hadn’t done anything stupid. She prayed that any moment Sierra would walk through the door and everything would be all right. Sierra, unlike Simone, was so innocent in her outlook on life. Tanya knew firsthand the dangers that awaited young girls out in the streets with no one nearby to look out for them.

♥♥♥

Tanya stepped off the bus at Penn Station in the heart of New York City. Immediately her eyes locked on the man leaning on the telephone booth. He must have been listening, because she didn’t see his mouth move. Something about him said that it would be a good idea to avoid him.

She took the escalator up to ground level, walked through the glass doors, and out onto Eighth Avenue. She walked a few blocks over, and stood for a moment as the glaring lights, hurrying crowd, and noisy traffic flowed over and around her. Everyone in the world must be on this one street.

“Wow!”

“Yeah, it’s something, ain’t it?”

The man from the station appeared next to her. She hadn’t even sensed him. He fit right in, wearing a white linen outfit that matched his pearly
teeth, but was a perfect contrast to his dark skin. His hair was plastered to his skull in a succession of waves that ended in a thin goatee, which actually made him seem hard and unfriendly. Strange things happened to little girls in big places. She had to be more careful. Actually, she wished she didn’t have to be here, despite the bright lights and the excitement the city offered.

Her parents had planned her life from day one, college at Yale, marriage to Peter Malcolm and the Malcolm fortune, two-point-five children, a house on Cherokee Road built from Social Circle’s own resources.

She was supposed to have her father’s charisma and her mother’s gentility. She got neither. What she had was a meek spirit coupled with mild paranoia and a way of just moving along with life as if she expected everything to be handed to her. A dangerous way to exist, especially in a place as fast-paced as New York. Why had she chosen to come here, of all the places to learn by trial and terror?

She should have gone to Chicago. In the movies she saw, the Sears Tower reached for the stars as the Windy City landscape of tall buildings and overlapping expressways spread out for miles. And Chicago had a slower pace than New York. But the movies also showed Central Park in its glory, all beautiful lush green trees, and lawns that stretched for miles; or snow-covered paths and lovers in horse-drawn carriage rides. A winter wonderland.

“So where are you from?” the man asked, turning to stand in front of her.

Was he trying to block her way? “Georgia.”

“Ooooooh, a Southern peach?”

“Something like that,” she said, pivoting to get around him. “It was nice talking with you.”

He grinned, but reached out and gripped her arm tightly enough to make her wince. “Hey, don’t run off. Let me take you to lunch.” His eyes traveled the length of her body. “You look like you could use a good meal.”

Now that was a lie if she’d ever heard one. Her mother was always on her about her thick body, limiting her food intake constantly as though she were in some overseas spa.

And Michelle had said she looked like a white girl who had never missed
a meal. God, she missed her best friend. She’d barely had time to toss a rose on Mindy’s grave before stealing away from the Pitchford home under the cover of darkness.

“How old are you?” the man asked, still gripping her arm.

“Eighteen.” Well, she was only four years off, right? She picked up her pace.

“Eighteen?” His lips spread into a sneer that unsettled her. He snatched her bag from her shoulder. “Okaaaaay, we’re in business.”

“In business?” she asked, jerking her arm away.

“You’re going to need a job and I know about one that would be perfect for you.”

“What kind?” she said, inching away. Two police officers were hanging near the Mediterranean restaurant about five storefronts away. They might as well have been miles from the corner as far as Tanya was concerned.

“Customer service,” he said, gazing intently at her, before shifting to take in the officers down the street, “but we can talk about all that later,” he added quickly. “Just let me get you something to eat.”

Instinct told her to stay put. His sudden interest in her and the fact he had tracked her from the station shouted bad news. “We can talk about it now or we’re not going to talk at all. Give me my bag. You’ll go your way and I’ll go mine.”

“Look bitch!” he growled, flipping a knife to her midriff. The sharp edge caused an inkling of pain to shoot through her. “I’m trying to help your country ass out.”

“You know,” she said, looking him square in the eye, “normally someone holding a knife to me would scare the shit out of me. But after what my parents did, nothing scares me anymore.” With the knife point still poking her side, she called out, “Officers! Officers! Help!”

The man’s mouth dropped. “You stupid bitch.” He pulled back his knife, eyes blazing as he turned to sprint away.

She waved as she said, “Bye-bye.”

“What seems to be the trouble, lady?” the taller of the officers asked, as his partner went after the fleeing pimp.

“Gee, I don’t know, Officer,” she said in her most innocent voice. “He
said he’s lost but when I tried to tell him that I didn’t know a single thing about New York, he pulled a knife on me and took my bag.”

“A knife?” the officer asked, his radio suddenly crackled. He responded, then said to Tanya, “We got him—and your purse. The only place he’s going is to the Midtown North Precinct.”

After some other policemen in a squad car took her to the precinct, Tanya swore out a complaint and signed the necessary paperwork to get her bag back. Thank God! Everything she considered important was in that bag.

But the tall cop who rescued her wasn’t going to let her back out on the streets before he said a thing or two. “You have to be more careful in a big place like this.”

“I can’t go home.”

When he pressed her for a reason, she told him a few of the pertinent details about what had happened to her. The officer must have believed her because he took her to a shelter on Forty-Eighth Street. The elderly woman who ran the house was tough, but fair.

Tanya stuck with her four-year leap in age and soon found a waitressing job. Only when she began working at Class Is In and one of the restaurant’s owners took her under his wing, did she begin to smile again.

Though she insisted she was eighteen, David pampered her and didn’t touch her for three years—only showing her the wonderful things he loved about New York: music, art, architecture, history.

At Class Is In, David showed her things to do with food that had nothing to do with getting it to the plate and everything to do with tantalizing the senses. When she turned eighteen, he married her and she was slowly able to push away the shadows of Social Circle. David loved her—slowly, gently—and she came alive again. His gentle touch could make her wet every single time, and she opened to him, adored him as much as he loved her.

He was as round as the Pillsbury Dough Boy with dimpled cheeks to match, thinning hair, a bright wide smile, and a sense of humor, but he was as much of a social outcast as she felt.

David loved her—but unfortunately, not enough to leave a will ensuring her financial future. When he died of an aneurysm at forty, his partners paid off the restaurant’s entire debt—as well as their own portion from his
insurance policy, then bought out his shares. By the time she got a lawyer to sort it all out, he was only able to secure a small one-time payment for her, which she tucked away for safekeeping.

Then she saw the advertisement for The Perfect Fit in Chicago. With David gone, and his restaurant securely in the hands of his greedy partners, nothing kept her tied to New York. She learned one key lesson from her relationship with David: Finding a man who loved her more than she loved him was always on the menu—but she would never serve her heart up on a platter again.

♥♥♥

As Tanya lay on the sofa in Brandi’s office, listening to the soothing sounds of the ocean coming from the stereo system behind the desk, the doorbell rang, jerking her out of a wonderful dream where David had reached out to her, loving her once again. She missed him so much. She jumped off the sofa, sprinted to the door, and opened it, but came to a crashing halt when she saw the visitor. “Where’s Sierra?” she asked Vernon, her voice sounding much calmer than she felt inside.

Vernon pushed forward, trying to barge in. “I need to talk to you.”

She pushed back. “Not without the woman of the house being home. I don’t want her to think anything’s going on with us.”

He propped a foot in the small opening to keep it from shutting all the way. “I’m the man of this house! I can come in anytime I please,” he snapped as he pushed his way into the house.

“Not the way Brandi tells it. And she who holds the gold, makes the rules. I’d rather hang my hat with the winning team any day.” She glowered angrily at him. “Where’s Sierra?”

Vernon stood just a few inches from her. “Why are you so worried? She’s not your child.”

“She doesn’t have to be my child,” Tanya snapped back. “It’s really low of you to do this. I thought you loved your children. At least that’s what you told me.”

Vernon pulled back the curtain, and peeked out of the living room window
before he turned to Tanya. “Listen, I have a proposition for you. One hundred thousand gets you out of my house and out of Chicago.”

Boy, he really was losing it. She parted her lips to tell him off, but quickly closed them. Heck, with that kind of cash, she could buy her own house, pay for her own schooling. She wouldn’t need either one of them.

She pushed the idea aside as reality set in. Even if she trusted Vernon enough to go along with it, she had a commitment to Brandi and to the children. She wouldn’t leave until she’d done her time, fulfilling her contract, then her guilty conscience would be eased. Tanya didn’t need the karma—she’d already lived down the worst of things. Because Brandi was right—deep down, she’d known that something was going on with Vernon. But she’d never pressed the point because she didn’t want to rock the boat. If she stayed with Brandi, she would have opportunities instead of just a little extra wear and tear on her body.

Twirling a golden curl around her index finger, she met his gaze. “Can’t do it.”

Vernon gripped her shoulders and shook her. “What do you mean, you can’t do it?”

“Okay, then…I
won’t
do it.” She shook him off. “I’m doing better now than when you lied to me.”

“And she’s working you like a dog or some glorified maid,” he said, following her to the entrance of the dining room. “I’m talking money free and clear.”

“Lower your voice, Simone’s upstairs. She doesn’t need to hear you talking like this.”

“Come on, Tee. I want my family back,” he said softly. “You know this is wrong.”

She shrugged, switching off the television. “Brandi didn’t say that you
couldn’t
come home.”